Table of contents

5 BLANDFORD FORUM (8806)

(O.S. 6 ins. ST. 80 NE)

Blandford Forum, the largest town described in this
volume, stands in a curve of the R. Stour which bounds
it to S. and W. The land varies in altitude between
100 ft. and 200 ft. above O.D. and is of Valley Gravel
and Chalk. Habitation probably originated in the
vicinity of the present Market Place, at the junction
of the river terrace and the Chalk declivity. The settlement prospered by reason of its position at the intersection of roads from Poole, Wimborne, Salisbury,
Shaftesbury and Dorchester, and from its command of
a bridge over the Stour. The parish was formerly more
extensive than the present borough; until the 19th
century it included the Manors of Nutford, Nutford
Lokey and Damory, all of which had mediaeval open
fields. Having been partly burned down in 1713 and
then almost entirely consumed by a disastrous fire in
1731 Blandford was rebuilt within the space of about
thirty years and consequently provides a noteworthy
example of an 18th-century market town. The most
important building to survive the two fires is the Old
House (12), dating from c. 1660. The work of reconstruction was largely guided by the brothers John and
William Bastard, master-builders, who on several occasions also filled the office of bailiff or mayor of the town.
For brevity we use the term 'post-fire' to denote the
period of intense building activity between 1731 and
1766, many details of which are recorded in a contemporary manuscript 'Survey Book' by John Bastard; it is
now preserved in D.C.R.O. The Bastards drew up an
accurate map showing the extent of the destruction
(Plate 104); it shows that the old street plan was retained
in the rebuilding, the only important change in lay-out
being the enlargement of the Market Place. The work
of restoration was regulated by Act of Parliament
(5 George III) and, to give effect to the Act, Parliament
set up a Court of Record with power to make rules
for the rebuilding of the town; a Commission was
also established for the just apportionment of the losses
incurred and for the distribution of the large sum of
money that was publicly subscribed for the relief of
the afflicted citizens. The Minutes of the Commissioners'
meetings, still preserved by the Borough Council, are
another useful source of information. (fn. 1)

Blandford Forum, Key Map Showing the Position of Monuments

The Parish Church, designed by John and William
Bastard and finished in 1739, is the principal monument
in the town; other important post-fire buildings are the
Town Hall (4) and Coupar House (8). The town
changed little in the second half of the 18th century,
but in the first half of the 19th century the wealthier
inhabitants began to build houses to the N., beside the
Salisbury road and along the road which branches off
it leading to Shaftesbury. Later in the century, perhaps
in consequence of the provision of piped water, denser
building took place on rising ground to the N.E.
between the Wimborne and Salisbury roads, where
there had formerly been gardens and where, as Bastard's
plan shows, temporary 'Barracks for the Distrest Poor'
had been erected in 1731.

Building materials. The surviving pre-fire buildings are mostly
of red brick with stone dressings. In the post-fire reconstruction
every building was brick-faced, except the Church and the
Town Hall which are of stone and the Greyhound Hotel which
has a stucco façade. Stone dressings were used only on Coupar
House, the largest private house in the town; other brick
buildings have quoins, cornices, doorway-surrounds, keystones
and other details executed in plaster and wood. Variety was
obtained by special brick bonding and by the use of bricks
of various colours; for instance dark red brick was often used
to outline openings, and quoins and window-heads were sometimes defined by finely-jointed pale red bricks, contrast being
provided in each case by building the main wall-face in blue
bricks. Flemish bond was generally used in the post-fire period,
but a special effect was sometimes obtained by the economical
device of using headers only; economical because it enables the
builder of use broken bricks. Façades are also diversified by
vertical chaînage of brickwork of contrasting colour which connects the openings of one storey with those of another.

Many façades retain traces of false brick jointing applied in
white paint to the wall-face, the latter having been coloured
red and blue, in correspondence with actual bricks but masking
the real joints. Sometimes the painted joints do not exactly
correspond with the real ones. It is uncertain if this work is of
the 18th or of the early 19th century.

Lime Tree House Group (i)

Classification of house-types. Ignoring minor variants, the
houses that were built in the post-fire period may be classified
in five main groups. The houses of Group (i) were designed for
wealthier professional men and leading merchants. They are
rectangular in plan and narrow enough to be spanned by a
single roof. The ground floor has a central vestibule and staircase, with one room on each side. The vestibule is usually
lit by a fanlight over the front door while two sashed windows
light each flanking room; the fireplaces are against the end
walls of the rectangle and the chimneystacks emerge at the
apex of the gables. The first-floor plan is similar to that of the
ground floor, with two principal bedrooms; smaller bedrooms
are provided in a dormer-windowed attic. Kitchens and service
rooms, with other bedrooms above them, occupy a lower wing
at the rear or to one side of the main block. The symmetrical
façade always has an ornate central doorway, with sashed
windows disposed on each side of it and corresponding windows
on the first floor. Lime Tree House (9) is an example of this
group (Plate 109).

No. 12 West Street Group (ii)

No. 69 Salisbury Street Group (iii)

The buildings of Groups (ii) and (iii) were probably designed
for occupation by shopkeepers and middle-class families and
they are found at the centre of the town, in the Market Place,
West Street and at the S. end of Salisbury Street. In every
case the ground floor is a shop, whether in origin or by subsequent modification, and the typical plans have to be deduced
from the disposition of the upper floors. Many of these houses
have three storeys. In Group (ii) the entrance is placed to one
side of the façade and opens into a narrow passage which leads
to the staircase, set against the back wall of the house; there is
one room in front beside the passage and a smaller room behind
beside the stairs; on the first floor the front room extends across
the ground-floor passage. The houses of Group (iii) have a
plan similar to the preceding group except that the staircase,
un-lit, rises between the front and rear rooms.

Group (iv) houses were for artisans and are mostly in the E.
part of East Street, on the W. side of Salisbury Street and in
White Cliff Mill Street. They are built in pairs and share a
common service-passage leading through to the rear, from
which both dwellings are entered (Plate 115). Each dwelling may
have one or two ground-floor rooms; where there are two, the
fireplaces are sometimes set corner-wise so as to be served by one
chimney-stack. In such pairs of houses one of the tenements is
usually bigger than the other so that one wall of the servicepassage may stand half-way between the end-walls, thus supporting the roof purlins with greater economy.

Nos. 15 & 17 East Street Group (iv)

In Group (v) houses the plan of the foregoing group is repeated
in a single tenement, which may be with or without its own
service-passage; in the latter case the front room is entered
from the street. A still simpler version of the artisan's dwelling
has only one room on each floor. Wherever possible the
inventory will be abbreviated by means of the foregoing system
of classification.

Ecclesiastical

(1) The Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul
(see Frontispiece and drawing facing p. 32) stands at
the E. end of the Market Place, on the site of the
mediaeval church which perished in the fire of 1731.
The new church was designed and built by John and
William Bastard; trustees for the rebuilding were nominated in 1733 and the new church was opened in 1739,
although work went on for several years after that
date. The church has walls of Greensand ashlar with
dressings of Portland and Ham Hill stone; the roofs are
tiled and of lead. The original design comprised Apse,
Nave, North and South Aisles, and a West Tower. The
last was originally intended to have a spire but a
wooden bell turret was substituted, much to the
Bastards' disgust. An organ gallery was installed at the
W. end of the nave in 1794, and extended into the
western part of the aisles in 1819; in 1837 both aisles
were fully galleried. In 1895 the apse was taken down
and the Chancel was inserted between the nave and the
rebuilt apse; at the same time the organ was transferred
to a chamber on the N. side of the chancel.

Blandford Forum parish church is a notable example
of Georgian church architecture in the classical style, as
interpreted by provincial builder-architects. (For plan,
see p. 20.)

Architectural Description—Externally, the nave and aisles
are combined in a rectangular structure of Greensand ashlar
with Portland stone dressings, defined at the four corners by
french quoins and capped by a cornice and parapet. The
windows are round-headed, with moulded Portland stone
architraves, impost blocks and keystones. Immediately above
each window is an oblong panel of knapped flint on the N. and
of Ham Hill stone on the other three sides; two panels to the
S.E. are enriched with carved fleurs-de-lis. Above the cornice
the parapets are interrupted at intervals by Portland stone
balustrading. The West Front is broken at the centre by a projecting pedimented bay some 10 ft. higher than the main
cornice. In the lower part of the bay is the W. doorway, a
round-headed opening with Tuscan pilasters and a horizontal
entablature; over this rises a tall W. window with scrolled
sides and a segmental hood on scrolled brackets, all of Portland
stone. The pediment of the W. front has a bold and simple
cornice, the horizontal member being interrupted to make
room for a clock-face. Above the central bay of the W. front
rises the Tower, square on plan, with rusticated quoins and with
a single round-headed and pedimented belfry window in each
side; the triple keystones of the belfry window heads extend
into the open pediments. The tower entablature is enriched
with a heavy modillion frieze; over it is a parapet, lightened
with balustrades in the middle of each side and thickened at
each corner to form the pedestal of an urn finial. Quoins,
cornices, balustrades and urns are of Portland stone. Above
the balustrades is a wooden bell-cote, square at the base, with
large scrolls set diagonally at the four corners; the scrolls were
perhaps intended for the base of the projected spire. Over them
rises an octagonal aedicule with round-headed openings on the
four major sides and, above, a lead cupola with a weather-vane
finial.

In the South Front a projecting central transept is flanked
symmetrically by six bays of round-headed windows as described
above. The Transept has colossal Portland stone pilasters at the
angles and a pedimented Doric entablature with a triglyph
frieze; the tympanum contains a sundial and at the apex of the
pediment is an urn. The S. doorway, in the centre of the S.
front of the transept, has a moulded Portland stone architrave
and a horizontal stone hood on console brackets; above, an
apron flanked by scrolls forms the base of a rectangular central
window with an eared architrave and a keystone that touches
the soffit of the Doric entablature.

The East Front was altered in 1895 by the addition of the
chancel and the rebuilding of the apse further E. Above the
chancel roof the E. wall of the nave is capped by a closed
pediment, some 4 ft. higher than the balustraded parapets of
the aisle walls and joined therewith by carved stone scrolls
which mask the nave roof. The Apse now stands 25 ft. to the
E. of its original position; it is flanked by the angle quoins of
the modern chancel, which repeat those of the aisles. The apse
windows are similar to those of the S. front but smaller.

The North Front repeats that to the south except for simpler
treatment of the transept; instead of the Doric order the projection is capped by a return of the N. aisle cornice and parapet;
the central doorway and window have relatively plain architraves and keystones; above rises a pedimented attic with a
round window at the centre.

Inside, the W. doorway opens into a square Vestibule in the
base of the tower; from it arched openings lead into the nave
and aisles. The vestibule is ceiled below the level of the W.
window and the latter illuminates an upper chamber, with arched
recesses to N. and S. and a round-headed window to the E.
through which light from the W. window finds its way to
the nave.

The Nave (Plate 98) is flanked by Ionic colonnades raised on
high pedestals above the level of the former box pews. On
each side are an E. end pilaster, five columns with cylindrical
stone shafts, and one with a rectangular shaft, the latter engaged
in the tower. The fourth intercolumniation from the E. is
wider than the others and corresponds with the N. and S.
transepts which, although now partitioned off at ground level,
formerly opened into the aisles and constituted a cross-axis.
The column shafts, each of three stone drums as old photographs show, have capitals with canted volutes; they support
entablatures with architraves of two fasciae, plain friezes and
modillion cornices. At the W. end of the nave, the window to
the upper tower chamber culminates in a keystone enriched
with cherubs' heads. At the E. end the pilaster responds are
coupled with square columns which support the wide arch at the
entry to the chancel, formerly the front of the apse; the intrados
is enriched with square coffers enclosing rosettes. Above the
cornices of the colonnades the nave has a vaulted plaster ceiling
of elliptical cross-section, each bay having a cross-vault which
terminates laterally in lunettes. The vault ribs have oak-leaf
wreaths and egg-and-dart mouldings, with acanthus bosses at the
intersections; that of the fourth bay is larger and richer than
the others.

The Aisles are lit by the six windows of the N. and S. walls,
by the windows of the N. and S. transepts and by a window
in each end wall, except that since 1895 the E. window of the
N. aisle has been blocked by the organ chamber. In 1837 the
aisles were divided into two storeys by galleries suspended
between the colonnades and the outside walls. Below gallery
level the N. and S. transepts were walled off and the cross-axis
formed by the widened central intercolumniation was to a
large extent nullified; however, the transepts remain open in
the upper storey and the small galleries which they originally
contained are now continuous with the large 19th-century
galleries. The original galleries are approached by stone stairs
beside the N. and S. doorways. The aisle ceilings (Plate 98) are
plaster cross-vaults similar to those of the nave but of shallower
elliptical cross-section; they spring from the Ionic architraves,
the upper orders of the entablature being omitted on the reverse
of the trabeation. The architrave mouldings continue on all
four sides of each aisle and also on the E. and W. walls of the
transepts but they do not return across the N. and S. sides of
the transepts. The ribs of the aisle vaults have mouldings
similar to those of the nave.

The Chancel of 1895 has, to the N., a wide opening to the
organ chamber; to the S. are two round-headed windows
similar to those of the aisles but slightly smaller. In general
the architectural ornament of the walls is uniform with that of
the apse. The barrel-vaulted roof is decorated with square
coffering, each coffer having a central acanthus boss and four
angle paterae.

The Apse (Plate 98) is lit by two round-headed windows
with splayed reveals, outlined by enriched and gilded plaster
architrave mouldings rising from sill fasciae with wave-spiral
ornament; the impost moulding at the springing of each
window-head has Greek-key decoration and the apex has a
foliate spray; the window reveals are coffered, each coffer
enclosing a rosette. The apse vault, moved bodily from its
original position in 1895, is ornamented with octagonal coffering
outlined in egg-and-dart enrichment, and filled with various
ornaments such as cherubs' heads and conventional flowers;
similar ornaments fill the small lozenge-shaped panels between
the octagons. At the apex of the dome is a band of wavespiral ornament and a central sunburst; the keystone of the
archivolt is decorated with a trinity of cherub heads.

Blandford Forum, the Parish Church of St. Peter & St. Paul

Fittings—Chests: At W. end of S. aisle, oak bible chest with
desk lid, carved front panel including initials T.G. between
palms, iron lock and hinges: 17th century. At W. end of N.
aisle, plain oak chest 3 ft. long, with moulded skirting and three
locks; 18th century. Communion Rail: balusters from 18th-century communion rail, seen in an old photograph, now reset
in front desks of modern choir-stalls. Communion Tables: At E.
end of S. aisle, of oak, with cabriole legs, enriched fascia, top
board moulded and enriched on three sides; c. 1735 and probably
the original communion table (Plate 45); in vestry, table with
spiral legs and plain stretchers and top; late 17th century. Font:
(Plate 27); at W. end of S. aisle, of Portland stone, with gadrooned octagonal bowl on square baluster with flower and
formal enrichment, and moulded base; octagonal domed cover,
of oak, with carved pine-cone finial; c. 1739. Galleries: W.
gallery, added in 1794 in W. bay of nave, with bow-fronted
oak-panelled parapet, supported on small wooden Ionic columns;
parapet with moulded capping set forward at centre to accommodate painted Royal Arms, q.v. Also N. and S. galleries,
inserted in 1837 by John Tulloch of Wimborne, with panelled
oak parapets and pine box-pews.

Monuments and Floor-slabs. Monuments: In chancel, (1) of
G. W. J. Chard, 1836, wall-tablet by Marshall. In N. aisle,
(2) of Mary (Pitt) Whitmarsh, 1753, marble tablet with arms;
(3) of John Gannett, 1778, marble tablet in slate surround with
urn and arms (Plate 99); (4) of Lucy (Pitt) Baskett, 1764, John
Pitt, 1757 and Dr. Christopher Pitt, 1801, marble tablet with
Latin inscription and arms; (5) of Christopher Pitt, clerk, 1748,
white marble tablet with arms; (6) of Nathaniel Benjafield,
1795 and his wife Ann, 1773, oval plaque with urn finial; (7)
of Nicholas Humfrey, 1776, and his wife Cecilia, 1768, veined
marble tablet with urn, arms and harpy crest; (8) of Mary
Marsh, 1787, and George Marsh, 1713, marble tablet with urn;
(9) of Robert Raynes, 1749, and his wife, Elizabeth, 1757, marble
tablet with pediment, flame-finials and cartouche-of-arms;
(10) of members of the Creech and Bastard families (Plate 99),
stone tablet inscribed 'Near this Place Lie the remains of
Thomas & lane Creech; the latter dyed 1693; the former 1720,
Leaving one Son & one Daughter. Thomas the Son was
the Learned, Much admir'd, & much envied Mr Creech, Fellow
of All souls Coll: in Oxford: Bridget, the Daughter, was the
Wife of Thomas Bastard of this Town. (A man useful, &
industrious in his generation, a peaceable, & inoffensive neighbour, and eminent for his Skill in Architecture;) By Whom
she had Issue six Sons, and four Daughters; Two of which,
Iohn and William, educated In the same Art, rebuilt this
Church, the Town Hall, with several other Publick & Private
Edifices, And, from a Pious regard for these their Ancestors,
erected this monument to supply the place of one destroy'd
in the General Conflagration, on the 4th of June, 1731'; (11)
of Thomas Waters, 1787, and Elizabeth (Goodenough) Waters,
1807, marble tablet with arms. In S. aisle, (12) of Richard
Pulteney, F.R.S., 1801, tablet with urns and arms (Plate 99);
(13) of his wife Elizabeth Pulteney, 1820, tablet by Hiscock
of Blandford; (14) of Robert Lewen, 1752, variegated marble
tablet (Plate 99); (15) of William Milbourne, 1760, and others
of same family, marble tablet with arms; (16) of William Pitt,
1730, and others of same family, baroque cartouche with arms
(Plate 99); (17) of Thomas Edward Baker, 1833, tablet by
Patent Works, Westminster; (18) of Robert Williams, 1757,
marble tablet with painted arms of William of Herrington, now
almost erased; (19) of William Sollars, 1816, oval tablet representing hand holding scroll, by Hiscock of Blandford; (20) of
John Bastard, 1809, and his wife, Isabella, 1811, sarcophagusshaped tablet with urn, by Hiscock and son; (21) of John
Dennett, 1772, and others of same family, marble tablet with
arms; (22) of William Wake, 1705, and Amy his wife, 1673,
parents of Archbishop Wake, obelisk-shaped monument evidently erected after 1731 (Plate 99); (23) of Thomas Lacy, 1815,
and his wife Alice, 1812, marble cartouche by Marshall. In
churchyard, numerous 18th and early 19th-century stones, none
earlier than the fire; the most important, (24) of members of
the Bastard family (Plate 102); table-tomb with moulded plinth
and top, extended at one end to form the base of an obelisk
dated 1769, each figure, surrounded by a wreath, occupying
one side of the needle; W. side inscribed 'To the memory of
John Bastard aged 82, of William Bastard aged 77, whose skill
in architectural and liberal benefactions to this town well deserve
to be publickly recorded'; S. side of table-tomb inscribed
'This obelisk is erected by their nephews Thomas Bastard
Sen'r. and Thomas Bastard Jun'r. the said John Bastard and
William Bastard are the same persons mentioned on a monument erected for that family in the south aisle of this church';
on N. side 'To the memory of Thomas Bastard of this town
died November the 12th 1771 aged 51'. Floor-slabs: In nave, (1)
of Mary McCombe, 1762; (2) of John Curson, 1795, white
marble slab; (3) of Elizabeth Pitt, date hidden. In N. aisle, (4)
of William Pitt, 1755; (5) illegible, 1755; (6) of Richard
Steyner, 18th–century. In S. aisle, (7) vault of I. K. Caplin;
(8) of John White, 1769; (9) of… . Hoare.

Hatchment: of painted canvas in moulded wooden surround
with lozenge-of-arms of Ryves. Organ: (Plate 100) built in 1794
by England (Salisbury Journal, Sept. I, 1794), moved in 1895
from W. gallery to N. side of chancel; wooden case decorated
with classical mouldings and acanthus carving, with royal
crown as central finial and Prince of Wales's crest on each side.
Panelling: In apse, oak dado with fielded panels with enriched
borders and enriched cornice; 18th century. Plate: includes silver
cup, paten and flagon with hall-marks of 1731 and 1732; cup
engraved with arms of Pitt; paten inscribed 'The gift of Mrs
Elizabeth Pitt, relict of ye late Dr. Christopher Pitt of Blandford';
flagon inscribed 'The gift of Mr. Charles Pitt of Pimperne'.
Pulpit: (Plate 100) of oak, formerly in St. Antholin's, London
(The Builder, Jan. 10, 1880); hexagonal, with raised panels with
acanthus enrichment on five sides; ledge similarly enriched and
breaking forward at angles above foliate brackets; late 17th
century, base and stairs c. 1895. Reredos: In apse, of carved and
gilded oak, reset and made 2 ft. higher than formerly by adding
to height of column pedestals; on each side, three-quarter
Corinthian columns with gilt enrichment supporting pedimented
entablature; tympanum with gilded cherub heads and corona
with gilt foliage; above, on shaped and panelled pedestal with
festoons at corners, free-standing Pelican-in-Piety and flanking
urns; between columns, panel with gilded egg-and-dart border,
and carved fruit and flower festoons above; panel now enclosing
modern painting but originally with text of Lord's Prayer and
Creed (Hutchins I, 224).

Royal Arms: painted on square panel at centre of W. gallery,
with cypher of George III and date 1794. Seating: In nave and
aisles, oak-panelled pews, originally box-pews rising to level of
column pedestals, remodelled and cut down to present height
in 1880. In third intercolumniation of S. side of nave, ordinary
arrangement of pews, interrupted to make way for ornate
Mayor's Seat (Plate 101) in which two parallel benches upholstered
in red velvet face each other on either side of main chair, of
oak, with seat, scrolled arm-rests and back upholstered in
velvet; vertical oak posts on each side of chair back flanked by
carved cheek-pieces in two orders, richly ornamented with
scrolls, acanthus foliage and swags of fruit; uprights support
foliate consoles enriched with flower festoons, and segmental
hood, coffered on underside; space between top of chair back
and hood filled with pierced and carved panel displaying town
arms and, on reverse, carved date 1748.

Tables of Decalogue: At W. end of nave, two round-headed
panels with moulded architraves, scrolled and foliate cheekpieces on either side and gilt lettering on black background.
In N. and S. aisles, painted Beatitudes on wood panels with
rounded heads and moulded surrounds.

(2) St. Leonard's Chapel (89060647), on the E.
boundary of the parish, is a half-ruined 15th-century
building now used as a barn (Plate 114). The E. wall
and the eastern part of the N. and S. walls survive.
The masonry is partly of flint and partly of squared
rubble alternating with triple courses of knapped flint,
with ashlar dressings and quoins at the N.E. and S.E.
corners, and with put-log holes outlined in ashlar at
regular intervals. The roof is modern. Internally the
walls are of coursed clunch with random flint courses.
The 'chapel' is notable as the only mediaeval building
to survive in the parish. It probably originated as an
infirmary.

St. Leonard's Chapel, Blandford Forum

The E. wall has a casement-moulded window of three
cinquefoil lights with vertical tracery in a two-centred head;
to the S. is a modern doorway. The N. wall has, to the E., a
window of two lights with vertical tracery in a segmental-pointed head; further W. is a doorway with a two-centred
wave-moulded head and continuous jambs; both openings have
timber beams in place of rear-arches; the doorway is blocked.
The S. wall is uniform with the N., but the head and tracery
of the window have perished; W. of the doorway is one jamb
of another S. window. Drawings of 1791 and 1859 (Dorchester
Museum, Shipp Album I) show that the N. and S. walls were
formerly symmetrical, with central doorways flanked by uniform windows. The W. part of the building has disappeared.

Secular

(3) Blandford Bridge (Plate 51) carries the road
from Blandford to Dorchester across the R. Stour, ½ m.
S. of the town. The main bridge, with six arches, is
separated from the town by a belt of water-meadow,
across which the road is carried on a causeway and two
other bridges respectively of two and three arches. All
three bridges are of Greensand with a certain amount
of brown Heathstone, especially on the W. side. The
main bridge is mentioned in the Quarter Sessions records of 1631 as being in need of repair, and similar
references occur throughout the 17th century. In 1726
an order was made for the bridge to be thoroughly
restored and for a causeway to be built across the
adjacent marsh; £115 was paid for this work in the
following year. In 1783 William Moulton contracted
to repair and widen 'the Blandford Bridges' for £840,
and in 1812 William Bushrod undertook to rebuild the
E. side of the bridge for £2,450.

In the main six-arch bridge the two central openings are
slightly higher, and the two outside openings slightly lower
than the intermediate ones. Triangular cut-waters with weathered
pyramidal tops project from both sides. All spans have plain
archivolts with projecting keystones. Above the keystones continuous ashlar plat-bands follow the rise of the arches, and
above these are ashlar parapet walls with weathered copings.
The intrados of each arch is divided into three zones by offsets
and straight joints running in the direction of the road. The
lateral zones are about 4½ ft. wide; the inner zones are about
14 ft. wide and all but one of them are constructed of smaller
and less carefully jointed ashlar than the lateral zones. The
central part of the N. arch (Plate 114) is supported on four
chamfered ribs of Heathstone, probably a vestige of the bridge
which existed before 1726, and perhaps mediaeval. The two
causeway bridges resemble the main bridge except that the E.
sides have been rebuilt in concrete.

(4) The Town Hall (Plate 106) stands on the N.
side of the Market Place; it is signed and dated 'Bastard,
Architect, 1734' in the entablature of the central
window. It replaces the former Town Hall, destroyed
by the fire of 1731, which stood on an island site to the
south of the present building (Plate 104). The two-storied elevation is of Portland stone ashlar. On the
ground floor is an open loggia of three semicircular
arches, with moulded archivolts and plain keystones,
on rectangular piers with lightly moulded imposts. A
moulded string-course runs immediately above the
arcade. The first-floor windows have moulded architraves, pulvinated friezes with foliate enrichment, and
pediments, that of the centre window being curved;
the sills are continued as a string across the elevation.
At the top of the façade is an enriched modillion
cornice of wood and a pediment with a clock in the
tympanum; three stone vases complete the composition.

The ground-floor arcade opens into a stone-flagged loggia,
known as the Shambles and originally part of the market; its
ceiling is supported on two Doric columns, axial with the piers
of the façade. An archway at the back of the Shambles leads
to the staircase, which rises to the first floor against the E. wall
and is lit at first-floor level by a round-headed window in the
N. wall. The present stairs are of the mid 19th century; beside
them is the entrance to a late 19th-century assembly hall, the
Corn Exchange.

On the first floor, a courtroom extends across the front of the
building and corresponds with the loggia below. Behind the
courtroom lie two compartments; the staircase to the E. and
the Council Chamber to the W. The latter has three windows
in the N. wall, a doorway from the staircase, and another
doorway leading into the W. part of the courtroom. There is
a fireplace in the S. wall. The Courtroom is plainly decorated.
The E. wall contains a fireplace framed by a plain eared architrave of wood; at either end of the N. wall are the doorways
to the stairs and Council Chamber; between them is a blind
archway with pilasters and a moulded archivolt. The principal
feature is the Magistrates' Bench, filling the W. end of the
room in a long shallow curve from wall to wall, with the
chairman's seat in the centre, the whole being raised upon a
wooden platform with a panelled front. The wooden bench
rests on short Doric columns, and a high back is formed by
ten fielded panels, five on each side of the chairman's seat; the
latter is distinguished by its round-headed raised and fielded
back-panel with a triple keystone at the top, and a pedimentcanopy on scroll brackets. The seat has scrolled arm-rests
supported on vase-shaped uprights.

Civic Insignia, etc: (i) Small Mace (12/3 ft. long) silver, parcel
gilt over an iron core, not hallmarked (Plate 103). A drum-shaped head embossed with fleurs-de-lis, with a tapering neck,
meets the plain shaft at a raised band from which three scrolled
brackets rise to support the head. The top of the head is a disc
of silver with the Stuart royal arms, initials C.R. and the
Garter motto. The shaft has a spherical knop with incised
radial lines and a grip with wavy serrated flanges. On the lower
part of the shaft is engraved Donum Lodovici Argentyne Ar:
1609 (sic) with shield of Argentyne, three covered cups. (ii) Great
Mace (3¼ ft. long), silver-gilt, by WG., with London hallmark of 1769; with a crowned head, a plain shaft with a knop
decorated with embossed acanthus foliage, and a trumpet-shaped grip similarly embossed (Plate 103). Inscribed on the
lower part of the shaft, 'Robert Biggs Gent Bailiff 1770'. The
head meets the shaft at a circlet of bay-leaves; the bowl has
embossed cornucopias and floral decoration forming two oval
panels, one with the arms of George III, the other with the
arms of the borough, i.e., the shield of the Duchy of Lancaster.
(iii) Borough Seal, silver (1½ ins. in diameter) with a turned
ivory handle; probably late 18th or early 19th-century (Plate
103); the shield of the Duchy of Lancaster is flanked by ostrich
plumes and is surrounded by the inscription SIGILLVM BVRGENTIVM
VILLAE DE BLANDFORD FORVM. (iv) Royal Arms of George II,
painted on canvas in moulded wooden frames, two panels; one
on E. wall of courtroom, the other on E. wall of staircase. (v)
Chest, wood, with scrolled iron reinforcement and three hasps,
17th-century, (vi) Pillory, in the Shambles, wooden cross-piece
with apertures for the neck and wrists supported on a wooden
Tuscan column, 18th-century.

(5) Fire Monument (Plate 102), commemorating the
fire of 1731, stands at the E. end of the Market Place
against the churchyard wall. It was designed by John
Bastard and was erected in 1760 at a cost of £66 os. 5d.
(Bastard's Survey Book, D.C.R.O.). Two free-standing
columns support a pedimented Roman Doric entablature with the date 1760 on the tympanum. The rear
wall, of ashlar, with terminal pilasters to correspond
with the columns, bears the following inscription: 'In
REMEMBRANCE of God's dreadful Visitation by FIRE
which broke out the 4th June 1731, and in few Hours
reduced, not only the CHURCH, and almost this
whole Town to Ashes wherein 14 Inhabitants perished,
but also, two adjacent Villages. And, In grateful
Acknowledgement of the DIVINE MERCY, that has
raised this Town, like the PHAENIX from it's Ashes, to
it's present beautiful and flourishing State, And to
prevent by a timely Supply of Water, (with God's
Blessing) the fatal Consequences of FIRE hereafter THIS
MONUMENT of that dire Disaster and Provision against
the like, is humbly erected by JHON BASTARD, a considerable Sharer in the general Calamity. 1760'. An
inscription of 1768 records an endowment of £600
by John Bastard and another inscription records the
repair of the monument in 1858.

(6) The Almshouses, on the N. side of the churchyard, which were built on land that formerly belonged
to the school (Act of Parliament, 5 Geo. III refers),
have now disappeared except for the gateway or S.
front (Plate 114). This is a triple archway of Greensand
ashlar surmounted by a pediment with a central oculus.
The round-headed middle arch is larger than the side
openings, which have shallow segmental heads. Above
each side arch is a recessed limestone plaque; that to
the W. is inscribed 'THE ALMSHOUSES AT THE WEST END
OF THE CHURCH BEING DESTROYED BY THE FIRE, THE 4TH
OF JUNE 1731, THIS WAS BUILT BY THE CORPORATION TO
SUPPLY ITS LOSS 1736'. The E. plaque has an inscription
of 1846.

(7) Ryves's Almshouses (Plate 112) stand on the E.
side of Salisbury Street. They were built in 1682 and,
being situated near the outskirts of the town, escaped
the fire. They are single-storied with brick walls and
have tiled roofs with stone-slate verges. The main range
stands parallel with but a little back from the street,
and at each end a short gable-ended wing runs out at
right angles as far as the roadside. Four round-headed
doorways, symmetrically disposed in the W. wall of
the main range, give access to what were originally
ten dwellings, now five. Casement windows between
the doorways have wide stone surrounds and mullions.
The eaves are masked by a plaster cove which turns
up at the centre of the range to form a small gable
supported on wooden consoles. Beneath the gable is a
stone tablet, surrounded by a moulded architrave and
surmounted by an achievement-of-arms of Ryves.
The tablet is inscribed 'GEORGIVS RYVES ARMIGER DE
DAMARY VICE COMES DORSETENSIS GERONTOCOMIVM
HOC FECIT DICAVIT ANNO DNI MDCLXXXII'.

(8) Coupar House, at the corner of Church Lane
and The Plocks, is probably of c. 1750; in 1731 the site
was an open garden with a small building at the
middle of the W. side (Bastards' plan, Plate 104). The W.
range has a normal Group (i) plan and is of three storeys.
The E. range is differently orientated from the W.
and therefore appears to be of another period; presumably it is earlier since the top floor of the W. range
is accessible only from the E. range.

Coupar House is the largest and most splendidly
decorated private house of the post-fire period in
Blandford Forum, and the only one to have the richness of Portland stone dressings on its brick façade
(Plate 105). In the front garden, handsomely carved urn
finials surmount the piers which flank the gateways
and occur at intervals in the wall. Despite the use of
costly materials the façade is curiously amateurish in
design. The various elements of the composition, adequate in themselves, are ill co-ordinated and little
attention is paid to rules of proportion. The interior is
richly fitted and the main staircase is the handsomest
in Blandford.

The brickwork of the W. front consists only of headers, red
bricks being used in the wings and blue bricks in the central
feature. In the two lower storeys the central feature is flanked
by Ionic pilasters carrying an entablature with a pulvinated
frieze just above the first-floor window heads. The lower orders
of the entablature distinguish the central feature alone but the
cornice continues across the whole façade, terminating at French
quoins at the extremities of the five-bay elevation. Above the
cornice the second storey has at each extremity a panelled
stone pilaster superimposed on the quoin below, and French
quoins on each side of the centre bay superimposed on the
Ionic pilasters. The façade is capped by a second cornice,
returned as a pediment over the central bay. On the ground
floor the central doorway is flanked by three-quarter columns
carrying a full Doric entablature and pediment. Above, the
middle first-floor window has an eared architrave, scrolled
stone cheek pieces and shaped consoles to the window-sill. The
lintel and keystone are squeezed with difficulty into the space
below the main entablature, the window architrave being
thinner than it should be and the keystone cutting into the
fascia of the architrave; this is a serious fault of design, and
strange in view of the fact that the same problem had been
successfully evaded in monuments (1) and (52). The round-headed middle window of the top storey is extended by false
panes into the field of the pediment and surrounded by a
rusticated architrave with a triple keystone. The lateral windows
are simpler than those of the central feature; they have stone
architraves with plain keystones, and on the first floor they have
sills with shaped consoles.

Coupar House, Blandford Forum

The stonework of the W. front does not extend in the N.
and S. elevations beyond the returns of the corner members.
On the S. side, both cornices continue across the end wall of
the main range in brickwork and follow the projection of the
S. chimney-stack. On the N. wall of the range, the main cornice
is not represented and only the upper cornice continues at the
foot of the gable. There are no windows in either end wall.

Inside, the square vestibule has a dado of fielded panelling
capped with a moulded rail which turns up to follow the
stairs and is continued on the first-floor landing. On the ground
floor, doorways to N. and S. have eared architraves and sixpanel doors; the entrance doorway is similarly treated but
with an eight-panel door. The carved oak stairs (Plate 84) have
an open string and a rich version of the Tuscan-column balustrade that is usual in 18th-century Blandford buildings; each
tread carries three balusters and the moulded handrail ends at
the bottom in a fist-shaped scroll. The square end of each step
is panelled and the spandrel below the panel is enriched with a
foliate scroll. The S.W. room is panelled to its full height with
fielded 18th-century panelling, the middle panel of each wall
being accentuated by bolection mouldings; the dentil cornice is
of wood. The marble fireplace surround is flanked by foliate
scrolled cheek-pieces; above rests a pulvinated laurel and acanthus
frieze with an oblong centre panel on which is carved a delicate
swag of flowers and fruit; the overmantel has a shouldered
centre panel flanked by fluted composite pilasters supporting
an entablature with a broken pediment. The N.W. room (Plate
117) is decorated in much the same way, but with a cornice enriched with egg-and-dart mouldings, a tier of fluted modillions
alternating with rosettes, and a fillet of leaf-and-dart below the
plain corona. The door heads have flat entablatures with
pulvinated leaf friezes. On each side of the fireplace is a round-headed recess. The fireplace surround is flanked by pilasters
with pendant leaf festoons crowned by scrolls with scale decoration on the front; these are spanned by an architrave with wave
ornament, above which a foliate scroll extends on each side of
a central panel; the overmantel consists of an eared architrave
with guilloche enrichment flanked by foliate scroll cheek-pieces
and crowned by a pediment.

On the first floor the stair hall has a moulded plaster ceiling.
The S.W. room has wall panelling of much the same style as in
the room beneath, but less rich. The 19th-century fireplace has
a reeded stone surround with roundels at the corners; over
it rises an overmantel composed of large acanthus brackets
supporting a broken pediment and flanking a flat panel with
foliate cheek-pieces and a scrolled head. The N.W. first-floor
chamber has no panelling; its cornice resembles that of the S.W.
room on the ground floor.

The passage between the E. and W. ranges is lined with
wooden panelling from the N. end to a transverse arch about
half way along it. The N.E. room is wholly lined with fielded
panelling above and below a moulded dado rail. The adjacent
room has a plain dado rail of c. 1820. Towards the S. end of
the passage, stairs lead up to the first floor of the W. block,
which is also entered from the half-landing of the main staircase.
The first-floor N.E. room has a bolection-moulded overmantel
and a moulded wooden cornice around part of the ceiling.

The house is separated from the street by a forecourt 30 ft.
wide, bounded by high brick walls which terminate at stone
piers on either side of an iron-railed centre section. The piers
have panelled sides and moulded cappings and support carved
stone vases. Other vases decorate brick piers at the N. and S.
ends of the court.

(9) Lime Tree House (Plate 109) faces Coupar House
across Church Lane and is a small Group (i) residence;
it probably was built soon after the fire (for plan, see
p. 18). The house is of two storeys with attics; a service
wing extends W. and S. at the rear and there is a
further S. extension which may formerly have been
for stables. The E. front is of blue header bricks with
red brick dressings and red brick chaînage between the
jambs of the ground and first-floor openings. The
windows have gauged red brick flat arches with triple
keystones; the tiled roof has two flat-topped dormers
with sashed windows. At the eaves is a moulded cornice.
The central entrance has an eared architrave and fluted
Tuscan pilasters supporting two orders of scrolled
foliate brackets; these support a segmental wooden
hood (Plate 69).

Inside, the stair balustrade (Plate 84) is of the common
Tuscan column pattern, a modest version of the one at Coupar
House; the moulded handrail ends in a fist-scroll with acanthus
enrichment. The hall and staircase walls have fielded dado
panelling capped by a moulded rail. The N. room is lined to
the ceiling with fielded panelling in two heights, with a moulded
dado and a deep cornice. The fireplace has an eared stone surround enclosed in a carved wooden architrave moulding with
leaf enrichment, flanked by wooden cheek-pieces with scrolls
and acanthus ornament; above is a pulvinated frieze with
laurel and ribbon enrichment and an oblong centre panel with
a floral swag; a band of egg-and-tongue moulding supports the
mantel-shelf. The overmantel is an oblong panel with bead-and-reel and leaf-and-dart mouldings. The S. room has a
panelled dado, and panelled cupboard doors on each side of the
fireplace. The two principal bedrooms have panelled window
shutters and that to the N. has a panelled overmantel.

(10) Old Bank House, 25 yds. N.W. of the church,
has a Group (i) plan with a service wing stretching out
to the N. from the W. part of the main range. The
lower part of the W. wall survives from before the
fire of 1731 and is probably a vestige of the School
House (Bastard's town plan, and Survey Book, p. 29);
it is built of thin, variegated bricks and terminates to
N. and S. in stone quoins. Three windows, one blocked,
and a doorway with a chamfered stone surround, a
segmental head and a stone hood-mould, open in this
wall. The upper courses of the W. wall belong to the
post-fire period like the rest of the house.

The S. front (Plate 114) has a basement, two main storeys and
a dormered attic and is of five bays, the middle bay slightly
wider than the others. The basement corresponds in height
with the stone quoin of the School House. The tall ground-floor windows have segmental arches of half bricks, with
painted keystones. The first-floor windows have flat brick
heads without keystones; a few inches above them is a moulded
wooden cornice which returns for a short distance on each
end-wall. The front door, of six panels, is sheltered by a porch,
perhaps a later addition, consisting of a segmental hood on two
free-standing, square wooden columns and corresponding
pilasters; the columns rest on stone podia which flank the six
steps leading up to the doorway. A large scroll-shaped castiron lamp or sign bracket projects from the W. corner of the
S. front. Inside, the stairs from ground to first floor have plain
balusters, presumably in replacement of an earlier balustrade,
which may be represented by the Tuscan newel-post at the
foot. The flight to the second floor retains turned balusters
similar to those in Lime Tree House (9). The stairs which go
up to the N.W. attics retain some 18th-century lattice-work
balustrades.

(11) The Rectory, 50 yds. N.E. of the church, faces S. across
the churchyard. It was built after the fire, somewhat N. of the
original vicarage site (Act of Parliament, cit.) and has a Group
(i) plan with a five-bay, two-storied S. front of blue brick
headers, with red brick quoins and dressings; the flat window
heads have triple keystones. The original central doorway
has been removed and a window substituted, the inserted
brickwork being skilfully bonded so that little trace of the
former opening remains. Wings were added to N. and W. of
the original block in the 19th century. An 18th-century door
frame reset in the S. wall of the W. wing may be from the
original front entrance. It is flanked by pilasters which are
divided into two equal panels by roundels; the lower panels
are reeded, those above have pendant leaf swags; the pilasters
support scrolled consoles and a segmental hood.

Internally the house has been extensively altered but the
stairs seem to be original, albeit reset. They are of the familiar
pattern already noted at Lime Tree House (9).

The Old House, Blandford Forum

(12) The Old House (Plate 110), on the S. side of
The Close and about 200 yds. N.E. of the church, is of
brick in a free English bond wherein one header course
alternates with two, three or four stretcher courses. The
steep hipped roof with wide spreading eaves is of
gradated stone-slates for two thirds of its height and
of tiles above. Although the kitchen wing appears to
have been added after the walls of the main block were
complete, the roofs are homogeneous and the addition
must have been made while the house was still in building. The proportions of the windows, the rustication
of the brickwork and the design of the roof all indicate
the middle of the 17th century. In the later part of the
17th century the house belonged to Dr. Joachim
Frederic Sagittary, a German, who entered Queen's
College, Oxford, at the age of 17 in 1634, received his
M.D. in 1661, practised medicine in Blandford and
died in 1696. The house is likely to have been built by
him some time between 1650 and 1670.

The house is something of an oddity and is described
by Hutchins as 'an architectural graft from the "fatherland" planted by the worthy doctor on the soil of his
adopted country' (I, 242). Nevertheless it has affinities
with the 'artizan' style of the second half of the 17th
century, exemplified in the contemporary halls of City
Livery Companies, and in a number of houses of the
period in the City of London and elsewhere.

The plan is L-shaped with the re-entrant angle to the S.W.,
and a porch of two storeys projecting from the principal front,
to the N. Apart from the W. extension the porch and the rest
of the N. front are symmetrical. Bold rustication is formed by
recessing every fourth brick course and by setting recessed
vertical bricks in the intervening courses. The rustication only
occurs on N. walls; on the flanks of the porch and on the E.
elevation of the main block it turns the corner and ceases in
the form of a quoin. A three-course plat-band above the
ground-floor window heads is continuous on all sides of the
house; where rustication occurs the plat-band is surmounted
by a brick roll-moulding. Above the first-floor windows is a
brick cornice, with a cavetto at the bottom, a roll in the middle
and a cyma at the top. Over this rests a wooden wall-plate
from which project shaped eaves brackets; they are about 1½
ft. long and 4 ins. wide, except those which correspond with
the main roof trusses, which are 6 ins. wide. Similar brackets
form a cornice to the porch, although the porch roof is flat.
The N. front of the porch has a doorway with a semicircular
arch of rusticated brick voussoirs and a similar outer arch over
the central portion. The central voussoir of the upper arch is
truncated to leave room for a sphere, cut in brick, while the
spandrels between the outer voussoirs and the plat-band are
filled with cryptic emblems in cut brickwork, apparently
representing a rose with three leaves (or a flaming catherinewheel) and a heart lying on its side. Over the doorway is a
niche with sill, jambs, impost and elliptical head of moulded
brick; it is flanked by baluster-shaped square standards. The
first-floor window immediately above the niche is of two
lights with a moulded wooden surround, mullion and transom.
The window-head lies immediately below the cornice, with
neither arch nor lintel. The E. and W sides of the porch are of
plain brick in the lower storey but they have recessed moulded
panels at the level of the ornamental niche, and panels outlined
with chamfered bricks at the level of the first-floor window.
On each side of the porch, the N. wall of the main range has,
at ground-floor level, single three-light transomed windows
with details as in the two-light porch window; they are spanned
immediately below the plat-band by flat brick arches, recessed
at intervals to represent rusticated voussoirs. The first-floor
windows are similar except that, like the porch window, their
wooden surrounds support the cornice without the intervention
of a lintel. Recessed aprons below the first-floor window-sills
have panels corresponding with those already noted in the
lateral walls of the porch.

The W. part of the N. elevation, fronting the kitchen, is
set 9 ins. behind the main plane; it is traversed by a three-course
plat-band in continuation of that already noted. Nevertheless
this wing has three storeys in place of two and the first-floor
window intersects the plat-band; it and the second-floor
window are of two lights, with moulded wooden frames and
mullions but without brick lintels. A corresponding opening
at ground level is blocked up. At eaves level, to compensate
for the set-back, eaves brackets have an extra 9 ins. length
of shank to allow one roof to cover the whole N. front. A
dormer window of three lights, with a hipped roof to match
the main roof, is set a little to the E. of the centre-line of the
three-light windows on the W. side of the porch.

The E. front is traversed by continuations of the plat-band
and cornice noted on the N. front. Near the N. end an unmoulded two-light casement window gives light to the basement. The first and second storeys have each two two-light
transomed windows similar to those described, the lower pair
with rusticated segmental brick heads. The S. opening in each
storey is blocked up internally, but the wood surrounds and
the vertical bars to which leaded glazing was formerly attached
are still seen externally. On the S. front of the S. wing the
plat-band and the cornice continue as before, but the original
casements have been replaced on each floor by a pair of 18th-century sashed windows. A blocked window occurs on each
floor in the W. wall of the S. wing. A doorway in the S. wall
of the W. wing, near the re-entrant angle of the L plan, is
perhaps of the 18th century but a sashed window above it
appears to be modern. To the W. of these openings a stout
buttress projects from the S. wall. It is of brick in four stages,
with moulded and tiled weathering to the two upper stages
and stone weathering to the two lower stages; it appears to be
contemporary with the house. The W. part of the S. wall of
the W. extension is built for a height of about 6 ft. above
ground in banded brick and flint, and the same material continues in the W. elevation to within 2 ft. of the N.W. corner;
above the banded masonry the W. wall is of brick with no
noteworthy features. Two large chimneystacks emerge from
the roof ridges; one at the intersection of the W. hips has
recently been rebuilt but the other, near the middle of the S.
range, appears to be original. An oblong brick flue, perhaps
originally square as indicated by a vertical joint, is capped,
2 ft. above the ridge, by a bold cornice; above this rises a
polygonal stack of eight unequal sides, encircled by a ring of
detached terracotta shafts, one shaft at each change of plane.
The shafts stand on moulded brick plinths and support rectilinear
projections of the oversailing moulded brick cornice, which
returns around the whole stack, breaking forward at each angle.

Inside, the house is disappointing since many original features
were removed about 1900. A wooden column supporting a
beam in the basement is probably of the early 19th century.
The massive oak stairs to the basement are probably original;
they have close strings, heavy turned balusters, square newels
with ball finials and a deep rectangular handrail. The panelling
of the hall is modern, and probably the chimney-piece also.
The dining room has a moulded dado-rail and panelled window
shutters. The wooden fireplace surround has a bolection-moulded architrave surmounted by a rococo frieze of arabesques
and garlands, deeply undercut. The drawing room has fielded
18th-century panelling that probably dates from the period
when the windows were altered. Two first-floor rooms have
fireplaces with bolection-moulded surrounds, possibly original.
The hipped roofs, visible in the attics, have massive principals
running from wall-plate to ridge, with tie-beams at the base,
collar-beams at attic ceiling level, and shaped king-posts rising
from the collars.

(13) Dale House (Plate 112 and illustration facing
p. 38), No. 79 Salisbury Street, is now the Constitutional Club. The Bastards' town plan indicates that the
nucleus of the building survived the 1731 fire, and this
is confirmed by the stone entrance doorway dated 1689.
The original building was more than doubled in size
in the first half of the 19th century by additional wings
to N. and W., and it was again enlarged about 30 years
later. In 1930 the entrance doorway was transferred
from the E. to the S. front.

The five-bay E. front is of brick with stone dressings, and
of two storeys, with a central projection comprising one bay.
The lateral bays and the corners of the central bay have rusticated stone quoins. The lateral windows have flat lintels of
gauged brick with stone keys; immediately over the ground-floor keystones the whole façade is traversed by a stone platband. The E. front is crowned by a heavy coved cornice of
plaster and wood, steeply gabled over the centre bay. The
central ground-floor opening originally had a stone doorway
surmounted by a pulvinated frieze and a segmental pediment
inscribed 1689; these now embellish the S. front. In the upper
storey, the centre bay has a round-headed window with stone
imposts and a keystone.

Internally the house has been entirely rearranged and no
notable 17th-century feature survives. The dado and cornice
of the S.E. room (the S. room of the original house) are of
the 19th century. The S.W. room, c. 1830, has a reed-moulded
plaster cornice, and the door surrounds in the entrance hall have
reeded architraves with angle paterae of the same period. A
wooden fireplace surround in the S.E. first-floor room is of
the common late 18th-century pattern, with festoons and
rosettes of carton-pierre.

(14) Eagle House stands on the W. side of White
Cliff Mill Street, 130 yds. from the junction with
Salisbury Street. Since the architectural style suggests a
date rather earlier than 1731 it seems possible that this
was 'Widdow Evens dwelling house, pretty good,
chimneys and part of the walls standing', as noted in
Bastard's Survey Book, p. 15; but the value of £78
seems low for such a handsome Group (i) house.

The original structure consists of the usual Group (i) range
with a brick E. front of five bays. Service annexes must have
existed behind the main block but their extent is not known;
they disappeared when the house was more than doubled in size
early in the 19th century. The E. front is of vitrified blue
headers with dressings of red brick; and the ends of the façade
and the sides of the middle bay are accentuated by projecting
pilasters outlined in red brick. The eaves have an ornate plaster
cornice with modillions and leaf-and-tongue mouldings.
Between the central pair of pilasters the horizontal cornice is
replaced by an open pediment. The sashed windows have flat
gauged red brick lintels with triple keystones. On the ground
floor, the S. part of the original façade is interrupted by a late
19th-century bay window and porch. The central first-floor
window has a round head with a moulded architrave and a
triple keystone. The S. front has, to the E., the gabled end wall
of the original block with a projecting chimney-stack and, to
the W., the wall of the block which was added in the first half
of the 19th century and which contains the stairs, lit by a tall
round-headed window. Internally the house has been much
altered, first by its 19th-century remodelling and later when it
was turned into offices. The former entrance hall, where the
original stairs were presumably located, has been thrown into
the S.E. room, which has fielded 18th-century panelling. A
moulded wooden cornice follows the E., S. and W. walls but
is absent from the N. wall, in the former entrance hall. The
19th-century stairs are of stone with a plain iron balustrade.
Part of the original staircase connects the first floor of the E.
block with the somewhat higher first floor of the later W.
wing; the wooden balusters have the usual form of Tuscan
columns above vase-shaped lower sections.

The foregoing comprise the public buildings and larger
private houses in the town. The descriptions of the
smaller houses follow, street by street.

Bryanston Street

(15) Park House stands at the W. end of Bryanston Street,
which was formerly a through road. It is of two storeys with
walls that are mainly rendered; the roof is tiled, with stoneslate verges. The house represents several periods and makes no
pretence at symmetry. Bastard's town plan shows it as escaping
the fire of 1731, but the present outline differs greatly from
that on the plan. The oldest part of the existing house is the
N. wing; additions have been made to E. and S., and there is
also an addition to the W. of the S. wing. The latter seems to
date from the beginning of the 19th century; the E. and S.
rooms are perhaps of the mid 18th century but with windows
altered in the last phase; the N. wing, presumably the building
shown on the Bastard plan, is of the late 17th or early 18th
century but with features, such as panelling, of a later period.

(16) Bryanston Cottage, of brick in two storeys, stands on
the S. side of the street with its back to the road and the S.
front looking over a garden. The E. part of the S. front is symmetrical and of three bays, with a central doorway and flanking
bow windows; the latter are of the mid 19th century. The
central and western bays were probably built c. 1750 and the
eastern bay seems to have been added c. 1820. The part of the
18th-century elevation that can be seen beside the bow window
is of blue headers; in it is a flat-headed 18th-century doorway
with a moulded wooden architrave. Internally, apart from the
added bow windows and the E. room of c. 1820, the original
plan is preserved. The front door opens into a square vestibule
at the back of which an elliptical-headed opening leads to the
staircase. To the right, a doorway with a reeded architrave opens
into the E. room, passing through a thick wall which was
originally external. To the left, in the staircase hall, the door
to the W. room has a moulded architrave with leaf-and-tongue
enrichment. The stairs have close strings, Tuscan-column newel
posts and slender balusters of the usual type.

(17) House, 20 yds. E. of the foregoing, is a small two-storied building of the late 18th century with a three-bay
S. front faced with mathematical tiles imitating brickwork
in English bond. To the E. extends an added wing, probably of
the mid 19th century but perhaps incorporating earlier service
rooms. Inside, the 18th-century range contains a narrow entrance
hall with a staircase and, to the W., a ground-floor room
decorated with a moulded plaster cornice, with leaf-and-tongue,
egg-and-dart and dentil ornament. The open-string stairs have
Tuscan newel posts and three balusters to each tread, the
balusters being of the column and vase pattern, but unusual in
that the columns have pronounced entasis. The step spandrels
are ornamented with simple scrolls.

The Close and Sheepmarket Hill

(18) House, facing N. across The Tabernacle, is planned on
a difficult site with acute corners; by its style it dates from the
late 18th or early 19th century. The N. front is of vitrified
headers with red brick dressings and gauged red brick lintels;
it is symmetrical and of three bays. The round-headed central
doorway, with reeded pilasters, panelled reveals, traceried fan-light and flat hood, is flanked by square sashed windows. Three
corresponding windows open in the upper storey and there are
two dormer windows in the roof, which is tiled. A moulded
wooden eaves cornice with modillions stops at each end against
shaped brick kneelers. Inside, the plan is of Group (i), with a
room on each side of the central stair hall and a third ground-floor room in a projecting wing at the back; the latter is reached
through an archway beneath the upper flight of the dog-legged open-string staircase. The stairs have scroll-outlined step
spandrels, Tuscan newels, two turned balusters to each step and
a panelled dado. The two front ground-floor rooms have
moulded dado-rails with acanthus ornament, enriched plaster
cornices and reeded door cases with angle paterae. The larger
room, to the W. of the entrance, has a chimneypiece with
carton-pierre garlands. The upstairs rooms retain contemporary
fireplace surrounds and decorations of more modest description.

The Rectory, see Monument (11).

The Old House, see Monument (12).

(19) Close House, on the S. side of the Close, is separated
from the road by a small garden. The symmetrical five-bay
two-storied N. front, with its tall windows, thin glazing bars
and concealed sash-weight boxes, belongs to the end of the
18th or the beginning of the 19th century. The plan improves
on the Group (i) prototype by having two back rooms as well
as two front rooms on each floor, with the result that the roof
has two ridges and a valley. The N. front is of red brick headers,
except in the gauged brick flat window-heads, each with a
white keystone. The eaves have a rich cornice with egg-and-dart
mouldings, modillions and dentils; the tiled roof has three
hipped dormer windows. The valley between the two roofs is
concealed by a large chimney-stack at the middle of each endwall. The front door, of six fielded panels, is surrounded by a
moulded architrave, above which is a frieze of carton-pierre
garlands. Slender pilasters on each side are capped by brackets
with vertical and horizontal scroll consoles, supporting an
open pedimental hood. Inside, a narrow passage with a panelled
dado passes between the two front rooms to the staircase hall
at the rear, emerging into the hall through a semicircular
archway with acanthus and leaf-and-tongue beading. The stairs
have outline scroll decoration on the spandrels, two slender
turned balusters to each tread and a mahogany handrail. The
N.E. ground-floor room has a dado of fielded panelling with
a fluted dado-rail with rosettes at intervals. The fireplace surround is very richly decorated with garlands and urns and has
a highly enriched cornice in which dentils alternate with pinecones. The plaster ceiling cornice is ornamented with swags.
The N.W. room has a similar cornice, a plain dado-rail and a
mid 19th-century fireplace. The S.E. room has a dado of
fielded panelling and a wooden fireplace surround with a
dentil frieze and a moulded cornice.

(20) Cottages, 6 and 7 Sheepmarket Hill, facing the churchyard, are a symmetrical pair of brick-fronted early 19th-century
two-storied tenements, each having one room and a scullery
on the ground floor, and no vestibule or service-passage. The
winding staircases are beside the chimney-breasts, which are
set in the side walls. A blind first-floor window recess corresponds with the coupled front doorways.

East Street

The eastern part of the street was destroyed in the
fire of 1713 (Hutchins I, 216) and was spared by the fire
of 1731 probably because the rebuilt houses had tiled
instead of thatched roofs. Hence the houses E. of Nos.
34 and 41 (Bastard's town plan clearly marks the extent
of the second fire) are potentially as early as 1713;
nevertheless it is clear that many of them were rebuilt
later.

North side:—

(21) Houses, Nos. 6 and 8, near the E. end of the street, are
small, late 18th-century Group (iv) dwellings, of two storeys
with dormer-windowed attics under tiled roofs (Plate 115).
The common service-passage leads to accommodation that
was originally a third dwelling. The S. front is of red and blue
bricks, partly in Flemish, partly in English and partly in header
bond. Internally, the stairs of No. 6 have an open string with
scroll spandrels, turned balusters and square newel-posts. No. 8
has a winding stair, and a small area of fielded panelling in the
back room.

(22) Houses, Nos. 14 and 16, of two storeys with a rendered
S. front, are probably of the early 18th century but have been
modernised internally.

(23) Houses, Nos. 18 and 20, of two storeys with a rendered
S. front, have Group (iv) plans and are probably of early 18th-century origin but altered in the 19th century when an additional
range of dwellings was built at the rear of No. 18. The entrance
to the common service-passage has a gabled hood on scrolled
brackets.

(24) Houses, Nos. 22 and 24, of two storeys, have a nearly
symmetrical three-bay S. front, faced with mathematical tiles.
The entrance to the common service-passage has a pedimental
hood on foliate brackets. The fireplace in a ground-floor room
of No. 22 has a panelled overmantel flanked by scroll-shaped
cheek-pieces.

(25) House, No. 26, a two-storied dwelling with attics and
cellar, is a humble version of the Group (i) plan, not isolated,
and having a brick S. front of only three bays. A two-storied
N. wing behind the E. part of the S. range has flush-framed
sashed windows with heavy glazing bars and is probably earlier
than the front range. The stairs have been renewed at ground-floor level but the upper flight has original turned balusters and
moulded newels. A small passage room in the N. wing, opening
off the staircase landing and lit by one of the early sashed
windows, has a coved plaster ceiling with ornate rococo decoration of serpentine acanthus foliage.

(26) Lyston House, No. 32 East Street, is a five-bay two-storied Group (i) house. Bastard's town plan shows that the
site was spared by the fire of 1731 but the building has the
character of the post-fire period and is likely to have been
rebuilt, probably before 1750. The Flemish-bond brick façade
has pilasters at each end and a slightly projecting centre bay
containing the doorway. A plat-band traverses the lateral parts
of the façade at first-floor level, stopping against the central
feature but carried across the terminal pilasters; the façade is
crowned by a cornice with fluted modillions and leaf-andtongue ornament. Over this rises the tiled roof, with two
hipped dormer windows. The nine sashed windows of the S.
front are uniform, each with a flat lintel of gauged bricks in
which the three middle bricks project to form a key, in this case
not rendered. The pedimented door hood seems to be of the 19th
century, perhaps replacing one more elaborate. Internally, the
hall contains a wooden open-string staircase with the usual
Tuscan newel post and two balusters to each tread; the staircase
wall has a dado with fielded panels and the step spandrels have
outline scrolls. The front room (Plate 116) on the W. of the
hall has fielded panelling from floor to ceiling, with a moulded
dado-rail. Cross-beams with guilloche ornament divide the
ceiling into four compartments, each with rococo enrichment.
The fireplace, to the W., has an eared marble surround outlined
in egg-and-dart moulding and flanked by scrolled cheek-pieces;
the frieze has pendant acanthus buds flanking a flower festoon
over which rises a pediment. The overmantel has a panel of
Greek-key ornament culminating in a cherub head with scrolls;
on each side are pendant festoons of flowers and ribbons hanging
from shells.

(27) House, No. 34, now a shop, adjoins (26) and continues
the plinth and cornice. The lower storey has been replaced by
modern shop fittings but the S. front on the first floor retains
three segmental-headed sashed windows. The E. bay is in the
same plane as (26) but the two W. bays are set forward.

(28) Cottages, Nos. 36 and 38, are of Group (iv), in two
storeys with brick fronts; they are of the late 18th century.

(29) House and Shop, No. 40, two-storied with a rough-cast front, is of the late 18th or early 19th century. The glazingbars of the shop-window and door have the form of minute
columns supporting elliptical arches.

South side:—

(30) Houses, Nos. 1 and 3, are an asymmetrical pair, of two
storeys, with rendered walls and tiled roofs; they were built
probably soon after 1713. No. 1 marks the beginning of the S.
side of East Street and has its main façade facing E.; a side
entrance to No. 1 and the front-door of No. 3 open side by
side in the N. front. The E. front has a hipped roof with a
dormer window while, to the left, a subsidiary wing extends
southwards, first in two storeys and then in one. The main part
of the elevation has a moulded and coved eaves cornice. The
front doorway, in the S. part of the main E. front, has a moulded
architrave and fluted side pilasters terminating in scrolled consoles, upon which rests a segmental hood; the tympanum is
ornamented with flower wreaths. A large sashed window with
exposed weight-boxes opens to the N. of the doorway and a
similar window occurs to the S. in the slightly recessed subsidiary wing. Smaller openings on the first floor approximately
correspond with those below. Unlike the E. front, the N.
front has a plat-band; the cornice is continuous. On the ground
floor, the N. front has a big sashed window to the E., then
two uniform doorways followed by two more windows; the
doorways have moulded architraves, panelled reveals and soffits,
and flat hoods on scroll brackets. On the first floor are four
uniform sashed windows, irregularly spaced, two to each house.

(31) Eastway House, No. 5, is in the part of the
street which was spared by the 1731 fire, but Bastard's
town plan shows a building close to the street whereas
the present house is set appreciably back from the
building line; hence the house is probably of the postfire period. The main door-case and the shaped parapet
and urns of the N. front are perhaps mid 18th-century
additions to a façade of c. 1735. The plan is two rooms
deep and is covered with a double roof, but the rear
drawing-room may be another addition of c. 1750;
without it the plan would be typical of Group (i): a
straight front range with a kitchen wing at the rear.
The N. front (Plate 113) shows interesting rococo
tendencies and the rococo plasterwork of the interior
is noteworthy.

The symmetrical N. front is of five closely spaced bays and
has a central doorway flanked by pairs of flat-headed sashed
windows, with five similar windows on the first floor and a
round-headed attic window centrally above. The ground and
first-floor windows have gauged brick flat arches punctuated
by projecting keystones; the central first-floor window is
accentuated by a curvilinear soffit. Plat-bands are set at first
and attic floor levels; a brick parapet rises above the upper platband and, over the three middle bays, develops into a pediment
with ramped abutments and three ornamental urns. The attic
window which opens in the pediment has plain impost blocks
and a keystone. The central doorway, on the ground floor, has
a round head with a fanlight and a lion-mask keystone; it is
flanked by wooden Ionic pilasters supporting a moulded entablature and pediment. Since the first-floor plat-band has been
rather carelessly hacked away to make room for the apex of
this pediment it seems that the door-case may be secondary; it
is, moreover, rather cramped between the flanking windows.
The S. front is rendered and asymmetrical. On the ground floor
the drawing-room has a three-light Venetian window; the
first floor has a similar window set between two flat-headed
openings, and the attic storey has a single dormer window.

Eastway House, No. 5 East Street

Inside, the front door opens into a passage containing the
stairs, with a room on each side, but the cornice suggests that
the E. room originally was not divided from the passage. The
open-string stairs have fluted Tuscan newel posts and the usual
balusters of small columns above vases. The step spandrels are
enriched with outline scrolls. The ceiling of the W. room is
decorated with a central mask surrounded by radiant beams
and a foliate wreath, perhaps 19th-century work. The drawing-room, at the rear of the house, has elaborate rococo decorations
of c. 1750. The fireplace, on the E. wall (Plate 117), has a shaped
marble surround outlined with egg-and-dart and leaf mouldings,
and surmounted by a roundel of amorini in a wreath of flowers
and fruit; above is a scrolled and shaped mantelshelf and a
highly enriched plaster overmantel, with C-scrolls and flower
festoons enclosing an oval panel. On each side of the fireplace
is a niche with a round head decorated with a mask in an
aureole of acanthus leaves. The W. wall of the room has two
doorways, one of them false, flanking a niche with a marble
shelf on which rests a gadrooned marble vase; over the vase the
niche is embellished with waterfowl and plants in relief; over
the niche-head are delicate grape festoons. The coved cornice
is enriched with rococo ornament and the ceiling is bordered
with flower wreaths and arabesques; at the centre three flying
doves bear a wreath of flowers.

(32) Houses, Nos. 7 to 17, are a row of paired Group (iv)
houses. Although built individually they all date from the first
quarter of the 18th century; all are of two storeys with dormerwindowed attics. Nos. 15 and 17 are higher and have larger
windows than the others, and an attempt is made to equalise
the two tenements of each pair by setting the service-passage
walls a little to the left of the centre-line (see plan on p. 19).
The original entrances from the service-passages have been
replaced by 19th-century street doorways, and the ground-floor windows have been modernised.

(33) Houses and Shops, Nos. 21 to 39, are small early 18th-century houses of two storeys with tiled roofs, mostly with
dormer windows; all are of brick but some have rendered
fronts. Most of the houses were originally of Group (iv) although they have now been modified. All the shop-fronts
are of the 19th century or later but the first-floor elevations
have 18th-century sashed windows and some have coved eaves
cornices.

(34) Stour House, No. 41, occupies the site of the most
easterly building in the street to be destroyed in the 1731 fire
(Bastard's town plan). The N. range has a Group (i) plan,
albeit of four bays. On the E. it is separated from the next house
by a narrow driveway; on the W. it is flanked by Common
Lane, which goes down to the river. The two-storied N. front,
of Flemish-bonded brickwork, has a plaster modillion cornice
with egg-and-dart and leaf-and-tongue mouldings. On the
ground floor the front doorway is placed to the W. of the
centre line, with two sashed windows to the E. and one to the
W.; the first floor has four openings. All windows have gauged
brick lintels punctuated by keystones. The doorway has an
eared architrave flanked by plain uprights which develop at
the top into double console brackets with scale and foliate
enrichment; these support a flat, lead-covered hood, panelled
on the underside. The original range, only one room thick, is
joined at the W. end to a S. wing of c. 1800 containing the
stairs; these are lit by a tall round-headed W. window. The
S. wing presumably takes the place of an earlier service wing.

The front door opens into a passage between the dining-room on the left and the study on the right. At the S. end of
the passage an archway with moulded architrave and keystone
leads into the early 19th-century stair hall, in which an 18th-century staircase has been reset; it has the usual Tuscan newel
posts and three balusters to each step. The spandrels have
carved scrolls with leaf enrichment and the moulded handrail
ends at the bottom in a horizontal volute. The dining-room has
a panelled dado and a rich plaster cornice; the fireplace has an
eared marble surround framed in wooden leaf-and-tongue
moulding and flanked by deeply fretted acanthus cheek-pieces;
the mantelshelf rests on paired acanthus consoles between which
is a frieze of acorn, oak and acanthus sprays, in high relief,
flanking a central vase. The drawing-room, in the S. wing, has
a fireplace surround recently transferred from the first floor;
it is of carved wood with flowered and scrolled cheek-pieces,
deeply carved foliate arabesques on the frieze and a moulded
cornice of cable and stylised foliage. The late 18th-century fire-place surround in the study has recently been brought from
elsewhere.

(35) House, No. 45, appears to be a mid 18th-century
structure although extensively rebuilt. Apart from the gauged
brick lintels with triple keystones, the three-storied N. front is
entirely of header bricks. The S. elevation contains two large
segmental-headed Venetian windows on the ground floor, and
a wrought-iron balcony on stone brackets on the first floor.

(36) House, Nos. 47, 49, was built soon after 1731 and is
two-storied, with a five-bay N. front of blue headers with red
brick dressings to the window openings. The first-floor windows
have label-shaped aprons. The gauged brick lintels have triple
keystones and the eaves have a coved plaster cornice that
returns on itself at each end inside the width of the façade. On
the ground floor the three W. bays are obliterated by a mid
19th-century shop-front. It is likely that the original entrance
to the house was in the central bay and that there were two
windows on each side; the two eastern openings still exist but
one of them has now become a doorway.

(37) Houses, pair, No. 51, are exceptionally small and low
Group (iv) houses, probably built soon after 1731. The N.
front is rendered and the shop-fronts are modern. The first-floor windows have 19th-century sashes in original sash-boxes.

(38) The Star Inn, although remodelled at the end of the
19th century, contains elements of an 18th-century building.

The elevations of Monuments (39) to (44) appear in the illustration facing p. 32. Unless otherwise stated, the façades are of
blue brick with red brick dressings.

(39) House, No. 55, is of the mid 18th century and in its
original form was probably of Group (ii); the plan has now
been obliterated by a modern shop. The E. wall, flanking the
entry to an adjacent yard, is of banded rubble and flint and may
be a survival from before the fire of 1731.

(40) Houses, Nos. 57 and 59, are a pair of mid 18th-century
Group (iv) houses. The first-floor bay window of No. 57 is a
later addition and the shop fronts are modern.

(41) House, No. 61, now two shops, was originally a threestoried residence representing Group (iii) in a large form; it was
probably built soon after 1731. Although the ground-floor
shops are modern, the carriage-way to the E. is original. The
main entrance of the house, in the W. wall of the carriage-way,
opens into a transverse corridor behind the front room. The
stairs are at the W. end of the corridor; they have open strings
and foliate scrolls on the step spandrels; the newels and balusters
are of the usual Tuscan pattern. On the first floor the two front
rooms have moulded cornices, and one contains a late 18th-century carton-pierre fireplace surround.

(42) Houses, Nos. 63 and 65, are a pair of mid 18th-century
Group (iv) houses.

(43) Houses, Nos. 67 and 69, are a pair of 18th-century Group
(iv) houses with the unusual feature of a central chimney-stack
bridging the common service-passage. The doorways on each
side of the passage now give access to stairs leading directly to
first-floor flats but this is probably the result of 19th-century
remodelling. The street front has modern shops on the ground
floor, sashed windows on the first floor and gabled attic dormers
in a mansard roof.

(44) House, Nos. 71, 73, is now four-storied but it was
originally of two storeys. The ground floor has been completely
obliterated by a modern shop; the first floor is lit by two sashed
windows and a large wooden bay window. The latter must be
original, otherwise the red brick jamb of a former sashed
window would be seen beside it. The moulded plat-band above
the first-floor windows is probably part of an original eaves
cornice and the two upper storeys are 19th-century reproductions of the first floor. Internally, the remains of an 18th-century staircase on the top storey have presumably been moved
up from their original position.

For No. 75 East Street, see Monument (45).

The Market Place

South side:—

The following description of the Market Place (Plate 97)
begins with No. 26, which is the W. half of No. 75 East Street.
The elevations of Monuments (45) to (52) appear in the illustration facing p. 32. As before, façades are of blue brick with red
brick dressings unless described otherwise.

(45) Houses, Nos. 26 The Market Place and 75 East
Street (Plate 108), were originally three houses. No. 75
was John Bastard's own house, which he rebuilt for
£704 10S. after the fire. No. 26 was two houses, built
by Bastard for £420 and leased to Mr. Price, apothecary, and Mr. Morgan, brazier; the ground belonged
to Williams's Charity. These facts are confirmed in the
Survey Book: '. . . the house they lived in, which was
the house belonging to Mr. Williamses charoty on the
south side the street opposet the church'; and later in
the same book: 'Memorandum. Before the fier we had
but one of the houses on Williamses charoty land . . .
that on the east side of the gate, where we lived. . . . To
incurage us to build the other two houses they gave us
a lease for 90 years. . . .'

The three houses almost certainly date from the
1730s. They resemble the nearby Red Lion Inn (47) in
having a central carriage-way leading through to a
back yard and, in the upper storeys of the N. front, two
ornamental pilasters rising above the carriage-way to
support an open pediment. Today there are shop fronts
on each side of the archway. The W. shop is of the late
19th century; that to the E. is modern. Photographs
taken before 1937 show the E. part of the N. front with
a rendered ground storey with two sashed windows
on the left and, next to the carriage-way, an 18th-century doorway, with pediment, pilasters and panelled
reveals. In the upper part of the façade red bricks in
Flemish bond are used for the lateral wings while the
central feature, between the pilasters, is of blue headers.
The ends of the façade have rusticated quoins of painted
plaster. The Corinthian caps of the two pilasters have
a single tier of acanthus leaves and up-growing corner
volutes, in-turned and joined together by delicately
moulded, individually designed swags of fruit and
flowers. The rear of the building has no formal design;
most of the window openings have segmental brick
heads and the walls are capped by brick dentil cornices.
The carriage-way, about 21 ft. long, leads to an irregular
yard flanked by the rear wings of the building.

Inside, the disposition of the staircases confirms that the
building was originally three separate houses, all of Group (iii),
the E. house large and richly appointed, the others more modest.
The central room on the first floor belonged to one of the W.
houses while that of the second floor may have been part of
the E. house. In John Bastard's house, the doorway and ground-floor windows of the N. front, which perished in 1937, opened
into a vestibule and a large room, of which only the plaster
ceilings remain. The ceiling of the room is divided into six
compartments by one longitudinal and two transverse beams,
all decorated with flower scrolls on the sides and soffits and
with rosettes at the intersections. Behind this room the house
is traversed from side to side by a corridor, 7 ft. wide, originally
entered through a doorway from the carriage-way, now blocked.
A transverse arch divides the corridor into two equal parts; the
inner part contains the stairs, with balusters of the usual Tuscan
column pattern, a fist-shaped lower terminal to the handrail,
carved and scrolled step spandrels and a panelled dado. A doorway on the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs leads
to a richly decorated mezzanine apartment (Plate 116) in the
rear wing, lit by two sashed windows on the W. Above a
plain dado the walls have 18th-century wooden panelling with
raised fields surrounded by leaf-and-dart mouldings. Above is
a plaster frieze composed of heavy swags of oak leaves and
acorns, alternating with human masks on pendant drapery;
the cornice is similar to that of the N. front. The modelled
ceiling has an octagonal centre panel surrounded by oblong
panels with acanthus rinceaux (Plate 107); each corner has a chaplet
of foliage enclosing a bust in low relief; intervening spaces are
embellished with rococo arabesques and amorini. The fireplace,
at the N. end of the room, has a moulded and mitred architrave
and a rich overmantel composed of panelled pilasters capped
with scrolled brackets and flanked with pendant drapery and
tassels; above is an open pediment. The door from the staircase, on the E. side of the fireplace, has fielded panels outlined
with leaf-and-tongue mouldings; the two top panels are
decorated with roundels. The enriched architrave is surmounted
by an entablature, above which is an oblong recess. The matching doorway on the other side of the fireplace opens into a
small cupboard. Facing the fireplace at the S. end of the room is
another and more splendidly decorated doorway; it leads to
nothing but a blank wall and appears always to have done so.

In No. 26 the ground floor is now a single office, but the
plan of the upper storeys shows that it was originally two
tenements, divided by a N.–S. party wall; the E. tenement
seems to have been entered from the S. side, the W. from the
N. Each tenement has its own staircase, with newel posts and
balustrades of the common Tuscan column form. In the E.
tenement, the N. first-floor room has a dado-rail on which the
fascia is enriched with interlacing ornament. The door has an
eared architrave with paterae in the ears, and the fireplace
surround has a frieze of rinceaux. The rear room has a zone of
fielded panelling below the dado-rail, a simple fireplace and a
moulded plaster cornice. The W. tenement has a fireplace with
reeded pilasters and frieze.

(46) House, Nos. 24 and 22, now two tenements but originally
one, is of the late 18th century. A service-passage to the E. leads
to a back yard, flanked by 19th-century outbuildings.

(47) The Red Lion Inn, Nos. 20 and 18 (Plate 108),
now converted into dwellings and a warehouse, appears
on stylistic grounds to date from soon after the fire. It
resembles (45) in having a symmetrical N. front of three
storeys and five bays, with a carriage-way flanked by
shops on the ground floor, and a pedimented centre bay
flanked by Corinthian pilasters in the first and second
storeys.

Although the arrangement of the main features is
similar to that of (45) the architectural composition is
more advanced. The various elements are effectively
disposed and the freedom of the baroque style is
exploited with restraint and ability.

Above the carriage-way the principal feature of the N. front
is a pair of pilasters rising through two storeys to support an
open pediment in which is displayed the inn sign, a heraldic
lion in relief with a scroll in its forepaws, backed by an ornate
plaster cartouche. The pilasters have Corinthian capitals with
reversed volutes and pendant acanthus foliage. The open pediment and cornice are elaborately modelled, with rosettes between
foliate modillions and a leaf-and-tongue moulding below the
corona. The S. elevation is of English-bond brickwork and has
segmental-headed sash windows, except in the W. part where
a wooden bay window has been added on the first and second
storeys; the wall is capped by a brick dentil cornice. Inside,
the building has been greatly altered. The inn was converted
into three houses before 1802 (Salisbury Journal, Feb. 15th) and
the only remains of original decoration are a moulded plaster
cornice in the N.E. first-floor room and a Tuscan-column stair
balustrade in the W. part of the building.

The present Red Lion Inn stands at the rear of No. 20; it has
a dentil cornice as on the back elevation of the main building,
and gauged brick window lintels as on the N. front. The front
wall, facing E., originally had in its S. part a central doorway
with two windows on each side; but the doorway was widened,
the two southern windows were rebuilt and one of the northern
windows was obliterated in the 19th century, leaving only one
original window intact. Of the five symmetrically disposed
first-floor windows one is now blocked. A first-floor room
contains a fireplace of about 1750.

(48) House, No. 16, has a late 18th-century N. front of two
bays, with segmental-headed sashed windows. A pair of Greek
Doric columns incorporated in the modern shop-front may be
of the early 19th century. The interior was remodelled in the
late 19th century but the staircase from the first to the second
floor is probably of the 18th century.

(49) House and Shop, No. 14, has a mid 19th-century shop
front but the two upper storeys are probably of the early postfire period. A brick plat-band marks the second floor and the
façade is capped by a moulded cornice of red brick. The eight
uniform sashed windows have segmental heads with triple key-stones; in each storey the E. window is set a little apart from
the other three. The interior was completely remodelled in the
19th century.

(50) Houses, three adjoining, comprise a pair of houses, now
No. 12 fronting the Market Place, and a third house, No. 10, in
an alley to the S. Each tenement of No. 12 has a plan that may
originally have been a simple version of Group (ii). The ground-floor shop-front is modern; above, a deep plat-band supports
three Tuscan pilasters, the middle one marking the party wall
between the two tenements and the outer ones standing close
to the extremities of the dual façade. Framed by the pilasters
each tenement has, on the first and second floors, two uniform
sashed windows with heavy glazing bars and exposed weight
boxes. A moulded string-course passes across each tenement at
second-floor level, stopping before it reaches the pilasters. To
the W. of the façade a first-floor extension of the W. tenement
is built out above a carriage-way; it is lit by a wooden bow
window of the early 19th century; above it is a dormer-windowed
attic. Although the two houses have now been thrown into
one, two staircases still exist in the upper storeys; they have
rectangular newel posts and Tuscan-column balusters. The
first-floor room in the E. house is lined from floor to ceiling
with fielded panelling. The two houses share a central chimney-stack.

Blandford Forum in the County of Dorset, Street Elevations

Monuments set back from street frontage shown in light outline

No. 10 stands in an alley at the back of No. 12 and is probably
of the late 18th century. It appears originally to have been a
Group (i) house with a central doorway flanked on each side
by two sashed windows, with five sashed windows above. The
doorway still exists, with a segmental hood on carved scroll
consoles, and the five first-floor openings survive although only
one retains the original sashes. On the ground floor, the windows
N. of the doorway have been blocked up and replaced by an
early 19th-century Venetian window; to the S. is a modern
bay window. The interior has nothing noteworthy.

(51) House, No. 4, has a N. front of dark red brick with
lighter red brick quoins; the centre bay is set a little forward
of the others. The ground-floor shop is modern but the upper
storeys of the façade are probably of the 18th century. The
interior has been entirely altered.

(52) The Old Greyhound Inn (Plate III), now a
bank, stands on the S. side of the Market Place at the
beginning of West Street. It was built soon after the
fire of 1731 and is of three storeys; the N. front is
stuccoed, with lavish details of the Corinthian order.
Internally the ground floor has been altered beyond
recovery but the first and second floors retain much that
is original.

As with monuments (45) and (47) the façade of the
former Greyhound Inn is a noteworthy example of
provincial urban street architecture in the English
Baroque style. It is the only post-fire façade in Blandford
to be wholly rendered in stucco. The Bastard brothers
owned the inn at the time of the fire and had recently
refronted it (Bastard's Survey Book, D.C.R.O.);
presumably they were responsible for the rebuilding.

Although the N. front is in other respects symmetrical, the
main doorway is set to the right of the centre-line with two
windows to the W. and four windows, slightly lower, to the
E.; only the three easternmost ground-floor openings correspond
with the regularly spaced fenestration above. The doorway is
sheltered by a porch carried on two free-standing Doric columns,
with pilaster responds on each side of the opening. Licence to
build the porch was granted in 1812 (Corporation Memorandum
Book) and it is likely that the two ground-floor windows to
the W. were modified at the same time, for they are asymmetrical, and without the porch the façade would be seriously
out of balance. At the level of the porch entablature the façade
is traversed by a coved fascia with leaded weathering which
acts as a base for the symmetrical composition above; early
prints show similar projections on many house fronts in the
Market Place. The two upper storeys are each of seven bays,
the three central bays, with plain Corinthian pilasters and a
pediment, forming a tetrastyle centrepiece. The architrave and
the frieze are interrupted between the columns to allow height
for the second-floor windows but the modillion cornice is
continuous. The pediment has a recessed panel, now empty but
formerly containing the sign of the Greyhound. The six
windows under the pediment have narrower and richer
mouldings than those of the lateral bays; the middle first-floor window differs from the others in having a segmental
head, and the window above it is enriched with scrolled cheek
pieces and with a mask on the apron below the sill.

The S. elevation is rendered up to first-floor level and of
English-bond brickwork above. The W. part projects about
3 ft. to the S. and contains two sashed windows on each floor,
those of the ground floor being round-headed. The other
windows have segmental heads.

Inside, the room to the right of the main entrance has a
moulded cornice, following the walls and returning along a
longitudinal centre beam. The window reveals have early 19th-century reeded architraves and the fireplace has a moulded
wooden surround; segmental-headed recesses on each side of
the chimney-breast probably represent former windows. The
open-string stairs have wooden balustrades with Tuscan newel
posts, balusters of the usual Tuscan pattern, and a moulded
handrail ending in a volute. The end of each step is decorated
with a simple scroll in outline. On the first floor, overlooking
the Market Place, are two large rooms each with three windows,
and a small E. chamber with one window. The W. room (27 ft.
by 16 ft.) has a dado with fielded panelling, and a fireplace with
a moulded architrave and a panelled overmantel with flat
cheek-pieces. The ceiling is divided by transverse beams into
four compartments each sub-divided by plaster mouldings into
three panels, the central one shaped, the others oblong. The
adjoining room (22 ft. by 14 ft.) has a simpler panelled dado, and
a wooden fireplace surround, with mantelshelf and pedimented
overmantel less elaborate than those of the W. room. The small
E. chamber has a reeded fireplace surround with corner roundels.
The second-floor rooms have early 19th-century basket grates.

The building at the rear, which is now called the Greyhound
Inn, was presumably an annex of the original inn; perhaps the
kitchens or tap-room. It appears to be mentioned in Bastard's
Survey Book; 'at the Greyhound Inn, all the long back building
thats cellared and arch'd under and the front, 1734, cost £787'.
The W. front has six bays and is of two storeys with a basement,
and with an attic in a mansard roof. The main floor is raised
six steps above ground level, allowing for a half-underground
cellar that is entered through low doorways. On the main
floor are two wide doorways, symmetrically set in the façade
so that a segmental-headed window opens on either side of
each doorway. The first floor has six uniform sashed windows,
corresponding with the openings below. At the eaves is a
wooden dentil cornice over a plain fascia board.

West side:—

The elevations of Monuments (53) to (55) appear in the illustration facing p. 38.

(53) House, No. 1 The Market Place, has a modern shop in
the ground floor but, above, it retains the two upper storeys
of a small but distinguished mid 18th-century Group (ii) town
house. The N. and S. corners of the façade have French quoins
of painted plaster; between these each storey has three sashed
windows, the central windows being set in a slightly projecting
bay which is further accentuated by finely coursed red brickwork in contrast to the blue headers of the lateral bays. The
façade is crowned by a modillion cornice which breaks forward
at the central bay and is capped by a pediment. Internally, the
ground-floor plan has perished as completely as the lower third
of the façade; the stairs have been transferred to a wing at the
rear. There appears originally to have been a service-passage to
the W. The front room on the first floor is panelled to the
ceiling with fielded panelling, evidently not in situ but possibly
brought up from the ground floor. The fireplace has a moulded
architrave and a panelled overmantel with a volute pediment.
The stairs to the second floor have an open string and Tuscancolumn balusters.

(54) Houses, Nos. 3 and 5, seem originally to have been
two uniform Group (ii) houses, each of three storeys and three
bays. Although the brick coursing does not run through, the
sills and lintels of each storey are at the same level in the two
houses, all windows have similar triple keystones and each
house has a similar but discontinuous cornice, with dentils and
modillions. Internally No. 3 has been completely gutted; in
No. 5 the stairs from the ground to the first floor have been
moved but the upper flights remain in situ and have details
resembling those of (53). Two rooms retain 18th-century fire-place surrounds.

(55) House, No. 7, at the beginning of Salisbury Street, is
of two storeys. The ground floor is modern but the first floor
has a header-bonded brick façade with three sashed windows,
and a fourth, smaller window to the N., above a carriageway. In the course of recent repairs a tile scratched with the
date 1734 was discovered; this is likely to be the year when the
house was built.

North side:—

The elevations of Monuments (56) to (58) appear in the illustrations facing pp. 32 and 38.

(56) Shop, No. 9, at the corner of Salisbury Street, is of two
storeys with cellars and attics and was built probably in the
late 18th century. The shop-front seems to be original and
consists of six sturdy plaster-faced piers, rectangular in plan,
standing on a low brick plinth and supporting, at first-floor
level, a wide coved pentice which continues on the W. front,
in Salisbury Street. The round-headed shop-window openings
are traversed by horizontal architraves enriched with reeding
and paterae, above which are beaded fanlights. The upper
storey has two sashed windows with segmental rubbed brick
arches; the wall is capped by a simple dentil cornice. The W.
front is similar; it has one window on the first floor, and three
shop windows below; to the N. are two lower bays, continuous
with the adjoining house (62).

(57) Shops, Nos. 13 and 15, each have two flat-headed sashed
windows on the first and second storeys, and a heavily moulded
common cornice with egg-and-dart and acanthus ornament.
The building probably dates from the end of the 18th century.

No. 19, The Town Hall, see Monument (4).

(58) House, No. 21, is of five bays. The sashed windows on
the first and second floors have flat gauged brick heads with
triple keystones; above is an elaborate cornice with modillions,
egg-and-dart and leaf-and-tongue mouldings. Although extensively remodelled, the skeleton of the house seems to be an
early one and a stone embedded in the E. wall of the ground
floor bears the inscription 'This is a parti wall, 1732'.

The Plocks

(59) House, No. 2, now the Municipal Offices and much
altered internally, was originally a Group (i) house of three
bays. A lease of 1759 in the Council's possession describes it as
'new built'. The original S. front has a doorway in a boldly
projecting two-storied centre bay, with one wide sashed
window in each side bay, three corresponding windows on
the first floor and two gabled dormer windows in the attic;
the extension of the façade to E. and W. by two further bays
on each side is secondary. The projecting bay may have been
inspired by that of the Old House (12). The two ground-floor
windows and the central window on the first floor have segmental gauged brick heads, the other first-floor windows have flat
heads, and all five openings have triple keystones. The side
bays and the sides of the centre bay are capped with moulded
wooden cornices with modillions; in the centre bay the same
cornice forms an open pediment. The central doorway is surmounted by a fanlight and a segmental hood on scrolled
consoles. Internally the original plan has been changed and
the stairs, which must originally have been in the central
passage, have been transferred to the E. part of the house; the
passage has been robbed of half its former width to enlarge
the W. room. The stairs have close strings, Tuscan newels and
turned balusters. The E. extension, No. 3, incorporates, at the
rear, a room which was originally the service wing of No. 2.
The remodelling of No. 2 probably took place when the E.
and W. extensions were built, c. 1820.

(60) House, No. 10, stands to the S. of Monument (9) but
is entered through an alley from The Plocks. It is an early postfire building, of red brick in Flemish bond, and of two storeys
and five bays. To the S. is a 19th-century one-bay extension,
and the two-storied porch at the centre of the E. front may
have been added at the same period. The four sashed windows
on each storey of the E. front, symmetrically disposed about
the porch, have flat gauged brick heads; above the ground-floor openings is a brick plat-band of three courses. The original
plan consisted of two rooms divided by a central chimney-stack,
with a small vestibule between the stack and the central doorway. From the entrance, a passage, parallel to the front wall and
lit by the two southern ground-floor windows, leads to the
stairs, adjacent to the S. wall. The N. ground-floor room
contains original fittings. A centrally placed chimneypiece,
with fluted pilasters and a panelled overmantel with scrolled
cheekpieces, is flanked by doorways with moulded and eared
architraves; the E. doorway is blind and at the centre of the
N. wall is another blind doorway. The windows have moulded
architraves and panelled shutters; the moulded ceiling cornice
is of wood. The small entrance vestibule is divided from the
passage to the S. by an archway with fluted pilasters. The
stairs rise in a single flight; they have closed strings and turned
balusters with moulded handrails, the latter being partly set
into the containing walls to form blind balustrades. (Demolished.)

(61) House, No. 12, near the corner of Salisbury Street, is
the shell of a late 18th-century house with a header-bonded
N. front. The whole ground floor has been gutted to make a
shop but the first floor survives. On the N. front are three
sashed windows with red brick quoins and gauged brick flat
arches with keystones. The moulded stone sills continue as a
string-course across the façade. The mansard roof has a panelled
eaves soffit and contains two dormer windows.

Coupar House, see Monument (8).

Lime Tree House, see Monument (9).

Salisbury Street

Bastard's map shows that the whole street was
burned down in 1731 except for Ryves's Almshouses (7)
and a few buildings on the outskirts of the town. The
post-fire houses are smaller than those in the Market
Place and in the W. part of East Street. Unless otherwise
described, the façades are of blue-brick headers, with
openings framed in red brick and with red gauged
brick window heads. Remodelling of the shops has
destroyed the ground plans of most houses but many of
the first-floor plans can be recovered; they usually conform to the standard Group (ii) or (iii) pattern. A
common 19th-century modification was to convert
the winding stairs into straight flights.

East side:—

The W. elevations of Monuments (62) to (70) appear in the
illustration facing p. 38.

(62) Houses, Nos. 2 and 4, are two-storey post-fire buildings
with shops on the ground floor. No. 2 has three unequally
spaced bays capped by a moulded brick eaves cornice; to the
S. are two more bays, continuous with No. 2 but belonging
to Monument (56). No. 4, of four bays, has an eaves cornice
of three projecting courses of unmoulded brick and two gabled
dormers in the tiled roof.

(63) Houses, Nos. 6 and 8, probably date from the early
post-fire period. They were originally united in an approximately symmetrical five-bay elevation but the two N. bays,
No. 8, have been altered beyond recognition. Above the
ground storey the whole W. front is hung with mathematical
tiles simulating header bricks; above is a moulded wooden
cornice. In No. 6, to the S., the ground storey is capped by a
coved plaster pentice, tiled above; this shelters an 18th-century
shop-front comprising two shallow bow windows and a central
doorway. Inside No. 6 the original plan survives, the house
having always contained a shop. A straight staircase, entered
from the through-passage on the N. side of the shop, occurs in
the N.E. corner of the plan. On the first floor are two rooms,
that to the S. having two windows, the other room one window.
Only the S. room has a fireplace, the sole chimney being
against the S. wall. No. 8 has been altered beyond recovery.

(64) Houses, Nos. 10–16, are a group of three-storey twobay houses of the post-fire period. The ground and first floors
have been altered to form shops but the original disposition
of the rooms is preserved on the second floor. The Group (iii)
plan is common to all except No. 14, which is of Group (ii).
No. 16, at the N. end, comprises two Group (iii) dwellings
each of one bay with a common chimney-stack. Between Nos.
12 and 14 there is a service-passage leading through to the
rear. Above the mid 19th-century shop-fronts the elevation of
each house differs. No. 10, to the S., is of blue brick in header
bond with red brick dressings and chaînage. No. 12 is of red
brick in Flemish bond with flat brick heads to its first-floor
windows; the heads of the second-floor openings are masked
by the eaves cornice. No. 14, of red brick in Flemish bond,
has elliptical-headed windows with moulded stone sills and
rendered architraves with impost-blocks and keystones; above
the first-floor windows is a moulded brick string-course. The
moulded brick eaves cornice is continuous with that of No.
12. No. 16 is in Flemish bond with red stretchers and blue
headers.

(65) House, No. 18, is of the post-fire period; above a
modern shop the W. front is of red brick with an occasional
blue header. On the first floor, two three-light sashed windows
with pilaster strips and dentil cornices replace the three original
windows, of which the bricked-up centre opening remains
visible. The second floor retains three windows, the middle one
blind. Adjacent to the N. is a carriage-way, above which is a
large room lit by a late 18th-century bow window.

(66) Houses, Nos. 20 and 22, are small two-storey post-fire
buildings, each of two bays. The ground floors have been
converted into modern shops.

(67) Houses, Nos. 24 and 26, possibly originally a version
of Group (iv), seem to be of the mid 18th century. Originally
the two houses were nearly uniform but, perhaps at the end
of the 18th century, No. 26 was provided with bow windows
in place of sashed windows. The gauged brick heads of the
original openings are seen on each side of the bow windows.

(68) House, No. 36, is a two-storied post-fire building consisting of two dwellings, that to the S. of two bays, the other
of one bay. The ground floor of the S. dwelling is now a
shop and there is a service-passage leading through to the rear
between it and its neighbour. The ground-floor window of
the N. dwelling has a gauged brick head; on the first floor the
front is of blue brick. The heads of the first-floor sashed windows
are incorporated in a dentilled eaves cornice, above which rises
a tiled roof with dormer windows.

(69) House, No. 38, is of the mid 18th century. On the
ground floor there is a service-passage to the S. but the rest
has been gutted to make a modern shop. The first and attic
floors have each two rooms divided by a central chimney-stack; the middle bay of the three-bay W. front is blind.
Alfred Stevens (1817–1875) was born in this house.

(70) House, No. 40, is a small Group (ii) house of the mid
18th century apparently converted into a shop during the 19th
century. The ground-floor shop-front has two splayed bays
flanking a central doorway with a straight hood which continues from side to side and also shelters the entrance to a
service-passage on the N. On the first floor a bow window
replaces the original centre window and the two outer openings
are blocked; on the second floor the centre window is blocked
while the outer openings remain. At the top is an enriched
cornice. The rear first-floor room and the front second-floor
room have 18th-century wooden chimney-pieces.

(71) House, No. 52, of two storeys with attics, has a rendered
W. front of three bays. On the ground floor is a 19th-century
shop-front but the first floor has three small sashed windows
with thick glazing bars and exposed boxes, suggesting that
the house goes back to the mid 18th century. The gabled N.
elevation has no window on ground and first floors but a
Venetian window in the attic. A later 18th-century house to
the E. became part of No. 52 in the first half of the 19th century,
when doors were cut through the party wall; its tiled mansard
roof is parallel with the slated roof of the first house and is
joined to it by a common gutter.

Ryves's Almshouses, see Monument (7).

(72) Salisbury House, at the corner of Salisbury Street and
Damory Street, has recently been demolished. Bastard's town
plan shows it as having escaped the fire of 1731 and it is likely
to have been built c. 1700. The W. front, of dark red brickwork in Flemish bond, was of two storeys and three widely
spaced bays. The central doorway had narrow pilasters supporting an open-pediment hood with a fanlight below it. The
windows were sashed and the N. ground-floor window appears
at one time to have been a doorway. The roof was tiled. The
N. front had single sashed windows on the ground, first and
attic floors, the last in a dormer. The S. elevation was in two
parts; to the W., the S. end of the W. range was faced with
mathematical tiles; to the E. was a two-storied early 19th-century S.E. wing, with walls of blue header bricks with red
brick dressings and with two Venetian windows, one on the
ground floor and one on the first floor. Inside, the plan consisted of four main rooms, three of approximately equal size
in the W. range and a slightly smaller room in the S.E. wing.
The middle room of the W. range contained an open-string
staircase with scroll spandrels, plain balusters and Tuscan newel
posts. The house seems to have evolved in three stages, the N.
bay of the W. range having been originally a small cottage with
one room in each storey, probably with service rooms to the
E. To this cottage, some time before 1731, were added the
centre and S. rooms of the W. range; the S.E. room may have
been added c. 1830.

West side:—

(73) House, No. 1, probably dates from about the middle
of the 18th century. On the E. front (see illustration facing p. 38)
a modern shop is surmounted by two storeys each of two bays;
at the top is an enriched modillion cornice. Internally, traces of
a passage are seen on the N. side of the shop and the original
plan seems to have been of Group (ii). The first floor consisted
originally of a two-windowed front room and a smaller back
room beside the stairs, but the front room is now divided into
two.

(74) House, No. 3, has an E. front closely resembling (73)
but independently designed, as its differently moulded and
slightly lower cornice shows. Internally it has been completely
rebuilt.

(75) House, No. 13, has a rendered front with a single bow
window on each of the two upper storeys, but these are mid
19th-century alterations and the original 18th-century E. front
was probably of brick, perhaps with two windows on each
floor, like Monument (76).

(76) House, No. 15, of two bays and three storeys, has an
early 19th-century shop front, and 18th-century sashed windows
on the two upper floors. The first-floor windows have segmental heads; those of the second floor come directly under
the cornice, in which brick-on-edge dentils are surmounted
by a wooden corona. The first floor has a Group (ii) plan. The
stairs and the fireplace of the first-floor room are of the 19th
century.

(77) House, No. 17, is two-bayed and three-storied and
probably almost contemporary with No. 15 although of taller
proportions and with modernised windows. The ground-floor
plan is of Group (ii), modified by a service-passage leading
through to the rear on the S. side; the original winding staircase remains at the N.W. corner.

(78) Houses, Nos. 19 and 21, are paired and have a common
chimney-stack; they are two-storied and probably date from
the mid 18th century. On the ground floor the party-wall has
been removed but the two staircases are preserved, back-to-back,
against the W. wall. To the S. of No. 19 is a service-passage.
The E. front has a modern shop-front on the ground floor and
on the first floor each house has a bow window, perhaps of
the 19th century.

(79) House, No. 25, is of two bays and three storeys with
an attic. After a period during which the first floor had a single
bay window the original 18th-century design of two sashed
windows has recently been restored. A second-floor string-course of gauged brick has shaped ends set in a little way from
the sides of the façade. The ground floor is modern, but the
typical Group (ii) plan survives on the first floor.

(80) House, No. 29, is two-bayed and of two storeys with
a dormer-windowed attic. Above the sashed first-floor windows
is a moulded and coved plaster eaves cornice. The servicepassage which formerly passed along the S. side of the shop is
said by the owner to have been removed in 1899. The first
floor has the usual Group (ii) plan and the E. room contains a
late 18th-century fireplace flanked by alcoves.

(81) House, No. 31, has a cornice continuous with that of the
foregoing and the two houses are probably contemporary.
About 1830 the E. front was rendered and a single window
was put in place of the original pair. The ground floor is a
shop but the Group (ii) plan, with a winding stair in the N.E.
corner, is preserved on the first floor.

(82) House, No. 33, of two bays and two storeys, stands
on the corner of Bryanston Street and has a hipped roof. The
shop-front seems to be of the early 19th century; over it the
rendered E. front has sashed windows with segmental heads.
The N. front is similar to the E. front but of three bays and
the first-floor windows have flat heads. The house probably
dates from about the middle of the 18th century.

(83) House, No. 45, is of two storeys with attics and has
an E. front of five bays. It was built probably as a private house
towards the end of the 18th century. Except for a servicepassage to the S. the original ground floor perished when the
house became a shop, about 1830, but the first floor retains
five sashed windows set symmetrically in a header-bonded
brick façade; above them is a panelled brick parapet wall. The
rectangular first-floor plan has four rooms, two in front and
two at the back, with the staircase between the two back rooms.
The open-string stairs have scroll-outlined spandrels and the
usual Tuscan-column balustrades.

(84) House, No. 57, is of two storeys with an attic. The
two-bay E. front has a 19th-century shop on the ground floor
but the first floor retains two original sashed windows with
gauged brick aprons, flat heads and triple keystones; above is
a moulded brick eaves cornice. The house is probably of the
mid 18th century.

(85) House, No. 63, is a two-storied, mid 18th-century
building with an E. front of three bays in a mixture of blue
and red header-bonded brickwork, with light red brick dressings
and a modillion eaves cornice. A two-storied 19th-century bow
window in the E. front has the entrance doorway to the S.
and a carriage-way to the N.; above, it is flanked by sashed
windows with gauged brick flat heads and triple keystones.
The doorway has a flat hood on scrolled brackets.

The elevations of Monuments (86) to (89) appear in the illustration facing p. 38.

(86) Houses, Nos. 67, 69, 71 and 73, are small mid 18th-century houses with Group (iii) plans. The red brick front of
No. 67 appears to have been rebuilt in the early 19th century;
it has a small shop window on the ground floor, the doorway
is spanned by an elliptical brick arch of two orders and above
it is a deep round-headed niche. No. 69 (see plan, p. 18) has a
rendered E. front with an inserted shop-window on the ground
floor. The E. ground-floor room has fielded panelling above
and below a moulded dado rail, and a small wooden cornice.
The E. front of No. 71 is built in a mixture of blue and red
bricks in Flemish bond and has a splay-sided, two-storied bow
window; inside, early 19th-century embellishments include a
cast-iron bucket grate in the first-floor front room. The E.
front of No. 73 is rendered and a modern window has recently
been inserted on the ground floor. Nos. 71 and 73 have a continuous brick dentil eaves cornice.

(87) House, No. 75, is of the mid 18th century but the E.
front, up to the heads of the first-floor windows, has been
refaced. The second storey of the five-bay front is in its original
state, the sashed windows having gauged brick flat arches with
triple keystones. The brickwork is of Flemish bond with blue
headers and red stretchers; at the top is a moulded brick cornice.
Permission to view the interior was refused.

(88) House, No. 77, is of the mid 18th century and was
originally two dwellings, each of two bays; on the E. front a
vertical straight joint is visible immediately N. of the central
doorway. The S. house has a brick dentil eaves cornice but the
N. house has none. Inside, as well as combining them into one
house there have been considerable alterations in both parts. In
the N. part the chimney is against the W. wall while that of
the S. part rises on the S. gable wall; a winding stair to the
attic from the first floor is set against the latter chimney, in
the S.W. corner of the house.

Dale House, No. 79 Salisbury Street, see Monument (13).

(89) House, No. 81 (Plate 118), is stylistically of the second
half of the 18th century and must therefore be a rebuild of
the house which Bastard's plan shows as surviving the 1731
fire. It is of three storeys and has a three-bay E. front of red
brick, carefully coursed in Flemish bond with thin joints. The
central doorway, with fluted Composite pilasters supporting a
pedimented entablature, is flanked by wooden two-storied
three-sided sashed bay windows, with dentil cornices at each
level. The first floor has a small segmental-headed central
window and the second floor is lit by three square-headed
sashed windows. At the top is a moulded stone cornice and a
brick parapet; the cornice continues across the N. gable but
on the S. gable, which is rendered, it is only returned. A two-storied service wing of two bays adjoins the N. gable and a
later range has been added along the W. side of the house and
service wing. The plan is a normal specimen of Group (i)
except that it is of three instead of five bays. Inside, most rooms
retain original dados, plaster cornices and panelled doors. In
the S. ground-floor room, round-headed niches flank the
chimney breast and the door-frame has a small entablature.
The staircase has two turned balusters to each tread and outline
scrolls on the spandrels of the cut string.

West Street

All the façades except the front of No. 13 are built in
header bond with red brick dressings and quoins, and
have flat rubbed-brick window heads with keystones.
No. 13 has been rendered, but the 18th-century fenestration is preserved. Nos. 3 to 7 inclusive have uniform
windows and a continuous cornice, with a plaster cyma
above brick-on-edge dentils.

South side:—

(90) House, No. 1, has been modernised on the ground
floor but the first floor retains one mid 18th-century sashed
window and a 19th-century bay window. Above a moulded
wooden eaves cornice is a tiled roof with two gabled dormer
windows.

(91) House, No. 3, is three-storied and of five bays; it was
presumably built soon after the fire. On the ground floor is a
handsome mid 19th-century shop-front with fluted Corinthian
columns and entablature; over this rise two storeys of sashed
windows with moulded wooden sills and label-shaped brick
aprons. The cornice and parapet were probably added early in
the 19th century in imitation of No. 5, for a print dated 1793
shows the roof with eaves. Internally the building has been
extensively remodelled, but an original, or perhaps an early 19th-century staircase occurs above the first floor; it is open-stringed
and has Tuscan-column balusters and newels, the latter with
ball finials.

(92) Houses, Nos. 5 and 7, are a uniform pair of threestoried, three-bay houses, stylistically of the late 18th century.
The sashed first and second-floor windows are set at the same
level as in No. 3 and have similar keystones, but the sills are
unmoulded and have no aprons. The double façade has red
brick quoins at either end and is capped by a brick and stone
dentil cornice with a brick parapet above.

(93) Houses, Nos. 9 and 11, of three storeys, were probably
built soon after 1731, the former with four bays and the latter
with three. The ground floors now have modern shop-fronts,
but seven equally spaced sashed windows open in the first and
second storeys of the N. front, part of which is crowned by
a moulded plaster cornice of egg-and-dart mouldings with
scrolled modillions. On the first floor the W. house retains the
original Group (ii) plan. The rooms were redecorated early in
the 19th century but a few minor 18th-century features survive.
The E. house was destroyed by fire in 1949 but the N. façade
is preserved.

(94) House, now the Crown and Anchor Hotel, stands in
the curve of West Street and has an irregular plan. Although
faced with modern imitation half-timbering the three-storied
N. front probably dates from the second half of the 18th
century. The doorway, near the centre, has two segmental-headed sashed windows to the W. and a three-light sashed
window to the E. On the first floor are five segmental-headed
windows with sashes with thick glazing bars, apparently
original; the second floor has similar openings, two of them
blind. The doorway opens into a passage which passes through
the house from front to back, leading to the stairs which are
against the rear wall. To the E. of the passage a front and a
back room have now been united into one; to the W., where
is now a single large room, the original plan is not recoverable.
Apart from a few Tuscan-column balusters on the first-floor
landing the stairs are modern, although probably in their
original position. Some bedrooms retain fragments of original
cornice, dado-rail and fielded panelling.

(95) House, No. 27, is of red brick in three storeys and has
a W. front of two bays; it is probably of the second half of
the 18th century. The doorway has a 19th-century fluted architrave developing into scroll brackets which carry a pedimental
wooden hood. The first-floor sashed windows have gauged
brick heads with keystones. Above is a plat-band which terminates at each end 9 ins. from the corner; over this are two
second-floor windows, equal in width to those below but
squatter; their heads coincide with a brick dentil cornice. The
interior was greatly altered, and some early 18th-century woodwork was probably inserted, when the house became a masonic
lodge at the end of the 19th century.

(96) Assembly Rooms, now a garage, stand on the
E. side of West Street, near the N. end of the causeway
which leads to Blandford Bridge (3). The building is
two-storied and has walls of Flemish-bonded red brickwork, and tile-covered hipped roofs. It is possible that
the adjacent house to the N. (95) was originally part
of the same complex; the brickwork is similar and the
façades are of equal height and until recently had
similar brick cornices. The ground floor of the assemblyroom building appears originally to have had open
arcaded sides; on the first floor the remains of a spacious
and lofty ballroom (56 ft. by 29 ft.) are now used as a
store. The building appears to date from the end of the
18th century.

The W. front has been greatly altered; the ground-floor
arcade has been replaced by a wide garage doorway and the
first-floor fenestration has been extended into a single window,
the jambs of which probably represent the outside jambs of
narrower openings. The S. elevation has, in the lower storey,
three segmental brick arches with stone key and impost blocks
on rectangular brick piers; to the E. the arcade continues in the
form of a half arch which abuts against the N.W. corner of
the adjoining house (97). The archway nearest the street is now
blocked and the other three openings are partly blocked and
partly glazed. On the first floor are three windows, corresponding with the three arches of the lower storey; the centre window
is round-headed and has a gauged brick archivolt, a stone sill,
stone imposts and a keystone; the side windows are similar
but square-headed, with gauged brick heads; that to the E. is
blocked. The N. elevation is obscured by adjacent buildings
but several of the ground-floor segmental arches can be seen
internally; a chimney breast projects at the centre. The E. wall
has three segmental arches at ground level and a large round-headed window on the first floor.

The interior decorations have now completely perished but
parts of the plaster ceiling of the ballroom were still intact in
1953, although much damaged. A rectangular central panel,
decorated at the corners and in the middle of each long side with
rococo ornament, was surrounded by a double cove rising from
a wall cornice of egg-and-dart mouldings, and fluted modillions
alternating with paterae. Of the stairs which led up to the ballroom no trace remains.

(97) Cliff View was built soon after 1731 but has since been
much altered. Originally the house was of two storeys, with
a three-bay W. front and a Group (i) plan; a single-storied
service wing projected to the E. At the end of the 18th century
the Assembly Room (96) was built against the N.W. corner
and a third storey was added to the W. front; other accretions
at the rear subsequently caused the service wing to be included
in an enlarged rectangular plan. A front porch and ground-floor bay windows were added late in the 19th century. The
W. front, separated from West Street by a garden, is of Flemishbonded brickwork with rusticated plaster quoins at the corners.
The quoin to the N. ceases at second-floor level, where the
original eaves lay, but the S. quoin was heightened to include
the second storey, c. 1800. On the S. front the original gable
can be distinguished, by different bonding, from the spandrels
which were added when the second storey was built. Internally,
the front ground-floor rooms have mid 18th-century joinery
with enriched mouldings, and acanthus cornices. A fireplace
surround has a sculptured frieze representing scenes from
Aesop's fables. The lower flight of stairs is of the late 19th
century, but higher up the stairs have open strings, turned
balusters and Tuscan-column newels of 18th-century pattern.

North side:—

The elevations of Monuments (98) to (103) appear in the
illustration facing p. 38.

(98) House, No. 2, is of the mid 18th century with a twobay, three-storied S. front in header courses of red brick. The
front terminates in a parapet wall with a stone coping, swept
up at the angles. The segmental brick arches of the sashed
windows have rendered keystones. The ground floor was
remodelled in the 19th century to form a shop but the upper
floors retain the original plan, together with some fittings and
the original staircase from the first to the second floor. The
plan is of Group (iii) with the stairs lit by a skylight. The
original entrance seems to have been from the service-passage
which passes through to the rear, in the adjacent house (53) on
the E. The staircase has an open string with scroll spandrels and
two turned balusters to each tread. The front rooms on the
first and second floors retain original fielded panelling in two
heights, and wooden ceiling cornices.

(99) House, No. 4, dates from the post-fire period and is
faced with blue header bricks, red brick being used for the
quoins, the window openings and their flat gauged brick heads.
The elevation finishes in a parapet wall above a heavy moulded
stone cornice, returned at the ends. The ground floor has been
entirely remodelled to form a shop; the upper floors, while
retaining the original Group (ii) plan, contain no early fittings.
A service-passage passes through the building on the W. side.

(100) Houses, Nos. 6 and 8, are of three storeys and date
from the early post-fire period; they present a unified fivebay S. front with an emphasised central bay. This façade
embraces two Group (ii) houses, that to the E. of three bays,
that to the W. of two. The ground floors contain modern shop
fronts but above these the elevation is of blue header bricks
with red brick quoins and window surrounds. At the top
is a coved plaster cornice, returned at the ends. The middle
windows of the first and second floors have round heads with
triple keystones and moulded imposts. The other windows have
shallow segmental heads and plain keystones, except for the
windows beside the central second-floor opening, which have
serpentine soffits. On the upper floors the original plan survives.
A service-passage to the rear of the building is placed centrally
below the party wall between Nos. 8 and 10.

(101) House, No. 10, built soon after the fire, was originally
two houses, that to the E. of five bays, the other of two (Plate
115); their elevational details are in most respects identical and
they share a common cornice and parapet, but the brickwork
of the façade is not continuous. The ground floors have been
combined and remodelled to form a shop with a shop-front
of c. 1830. The S. front of the W. house is predominantly of
purple brick, that of the E. house is of grey brick; red brick
is used for quoins and window surrounds in both houses.
The middle window on each upper floor of the E. house has
a keystone with a mask; all other windows have keystones in
which the upper part is decorated with scale ornament while
the lower part is fluted. Label-shaped red brick aprons embellished with guttae project below the second-floor sills. The
elevation terminates in a moulded dentil cornice, and a parapet
wall with projecting panels of red brick. The house shares the
service-passage at its E. end with No. 8. The upper storeys have
been converted into modern flats and retain no noteworthy
features.

(102) House, No. 12 (plan on p. 18), belongs to the early
post-fire period and has a Group (ii) plan. The S. front is
faced with a random mixture of header bricks; the details are
similar to those of No. 10, but the storeys are lower and the
cornice is simpler. The ground floor has a 19th-century shop
front and the interior was altered when the shop was made,
but the service-passage leading through to the rear, on the W.,
remains. The original staircase survives from the first quarterlanding above ground to the attic. The first-floor rooms contain
fielded panelling and the front room has a wooden cornice.

(103) The Three Choughs Inn is of the mid 18th century.
The two W. bays of the five-bay S. front are splayed back
from the street front. The three storeys of sashed windows are
linked by red brick chaînage and the first and second-storey
windows have flush aprons of the same colour. Between the
two E. ground-floor windows is a blocked opening. The N.
elevation is of red brick, and three of the segmental-headed
windows have leaded casements in wood surrounds. The tiled
roof has a central valley which emerges on the W. The original
plan consisted of four rooms set two on each side of a throughpassage running from N. to S., with the staircase at the N. end.
A central chimney-stack is set in each E. and W. wall. The
building has recently been repaired and the internal arrangements
much altered. Between the first and second floors, part of an
original winding staircase with Tuscan newels and balusters is
preserved. It has a small well and retains three flights with
winders. The newels consist of superimposed Tuscan columns
separated by square blocks, against which the handrails are
stopped; each tread has two turned balusters.

Blandford Forum in the County of Dorset, Street Elevations

Spaces between Buildings, indicated by breaks in ground-line, are not to scale

White Cliff Mill Street

East side:—

(104) Cottage, No. 4, is a mid 18th-century artisan's
dwelling of Group (v). The single ground-floor room is entered
from the street through a doorway in the N. part of the W.
front, and a large adjacent window implies that the dwelling
was originally a shop. The chimney-stack takes up most of the
S. wall but there is space in the S.W. corner for a winding
stair against the side of the stack; it leads direct to the single
first-floor room, whence other steps wind up to the attic. A
scullery occupies a one-storied annex at the rear. (Demolished.)

(105) Cottage, No. 6, is contemporary with (104). It is
two-storied and has a two-bay W. front of header brickwork
with red brick dressings; the gauged brick flat window heads
have triple keystones. Originally the ground floor had a doorway and one small window, but the window was enlarged
early in the 19th century; the two sashed first-floor windows
and the attic dormer are unchanged. The doorway has a flat
hood on simple scroll consoles. Inside, the plan consists of a
front room with a small entrance vestibule and staircase to the
N., and a back room extending across the width of the house.
The first-floor plan is similar. At the back of the house is a
long workshop; this and an odd collection of interior woodwork, including a fluted column-shaft, suggest that the cottage
was once occupied by a joiner. (Demolished.)

(106) Half Moon Inn, No. 16, is composed of two cottages.
The older cottage to the N. is contemporary with (104) and
has much the same plan; the other is of the end of the 18th
century.

(107) House, No. 26 (Plate 115), preserves many features
from the early post-fire period. It is two-storied with an attic
and has a W. front of two bays with regularly disposed sashed
windows. The front is of header bricks with red brick quoins
and dressings, and has at first-floor level a plat-band which
ends short of the corners; the eaves have a moulded plastic
cornice with vertical fluting. The plan is of Group (ii) with
a service-passage leading through to the rear. The doorway,
to the S. in the W. front, opens into the service-passage and
at the E. end of the passage another doorway opens on a back
yard. Internal doorways on the N. side of the service-passage
open into the front and back ground-floor rooms. The front
room has panelling on two sides and a fireplace in the N.E.
corner. The staircase is at the N. end of the narrower back
room and thus adjacent to the chimney-stack. The first-floor
plan repeats the ground floor except that the rooms extend
over the service-passage. The attic has only one room.

(108) Cottages, Nos. 28 and 30, repeat the Group (v) plan
of No. 4, but the smaller chimney-breasts suggest a somewhat
later date. (Demolished.)

(109) White Cliff House, No. 38, is substantially a mid
18th-century Group (i) house but it was extensively altered
c. 1850 and again at the end of the 19th century, to which
periods the Venetian windows and pediment-hooded doorway
of the W. front may be assigned. Traces of original openings
are discernible in the W. front, and an original one-storey
service annex in the S.E. quarter of the plan is betrayed by
the stretcher-bonded brickwork of the lower part of this wing,
the random-bonded upper storey being later. Internally, the
partitions between the central vestibule and the two front
rooms have been moved N. but the original plan is suggested
by a length of plaster cornice at the E. end of the vestibule,
which terminates some distance from the N. side wall. The
close-string staircase with swelling Tuscan-column newel posts
and balusters is probably a mid 19th-century version of the
usual 18th-century pattern. Panelling below the window-sills
in the S.E. bedroom does not correspond with the present
openings and presumably represents an earlier scheme of
fenestration. The blocked central first-floor window of the
original W. front is seen in a closet which opens out of the
N.E. bedroom. The latter has full-height panelling on the S.
and E. walls; the woodwork stops short of the N.E. corner
but this may be due to enlargement of the room by removal
of cupboards on the N. side. A mid 18th-century fireplace
surround with pulvinated frieze and scrolled cheek-pieces
occurs at the centre of the N. wall in the same room.

West side:—

(110) The King's Arms Hotel, No. 1, was built probably in
the mid 18th century as two-storied houses, and was converted
into a single property c. 1840. The smaller of the two houses, on
the corner of Bryanston Street and White Cliff Mill Street,
probably had a S. front of three bays, but only the W. windows
remain; the wall is of English-bonded brickwork for abour
half the height of the ground storey, and in random bond
above that level. To the W. of the S. front is a covered entry
to the yard at the back; a perpendicular joint running up to
the eaves from the E. abutment of its segmental arch shows that
the first-floor room has been extended across the entry. The E.
front of the S. house is rendered and has one sashed window
centrally in the ground storey and another on the first floor.
The N. house fronts White Cliff Mill Street. Its E. front is
aligned with that of the S. house and since both have a common
plaster revetment the division between the two fronts is indistinguishable, apart from the fact that the windows are set at
different levels conforming to the rise of the ground. The
entrance to the hotel, at the S. end of the E. front of the N.
house, has three stone steps flanked by iron handrails; panelled
pilasters flanking the doorway support scrolled brackets and a
flat hood. The passage inside originally ran straight through to
the yard but it is now interrupted by stairs of c. 1840 which
cross it at right angles. The stairs lead to the first-floor room
of the S. house, which is now the dining-room. At the W.
end this room extends across the covered entry from Bryanston
Street.

Eagle House, No. 19, see Monument (14).

(111) Houses, Nos. 21 and 23, are suburban villas of c. 1830,
symmetrically designed with pleasing red brick E. fronts of
two storeys and three bays; the roofs are slate-covered. The
doorways have flat wooden hoods, one of which is supported
on slender Gothic shafted columns; on either side are broad
sashed windows. The first floors have similar sashed windows
on each side and slightly narrower windows over the doorways.
Internally, in No. 23, a hall-passage runs from front to back of
the square plan, opening half-way along the S. side to a staircase which extends to the S. wall. A doorway under the stairs
gives access to the service wing which juts out from the W.
part of the S. side. Four rooms open from the T-shaped hallpassage; those in the N.E., S.E. and S.W. corners of the plan
are of about equal size, but the N.W. room is larger because it
includes the equivalent width of the staircase. Adjacent to the
N. are two similar isolated houses and two more, paired; they
are probably all of c. 1850.

Noteworthy early 19th-century buildings in Blandford Forum
also include the following.—No. 19 East Street is a large
isolated house standing well back from the road; according
to an inscription discovered during recent works it was built
in 1832. On the E. side of Salisbury Street, near the N. end
and located between Monuments (7) and (72), are seven threestoried houses of c. 1830–50. The southernmost, No. 76, is
brick-fronted, with a symmetrical W. façade of three bays;
the ground-floor openings are set in round-headed recesses.
Adjacent, but set further back from the road, No. 78 has a
rendered, symmetrical W. front of three bays, with a rusticated
lower storey and a single order of shallow Doric pilasters
embracing the two upper storeys. No. 80, adjacent, is somewhat
similar to No. 78 but the pilasters are omitted, the centre bay
is slightly recessed, and the doorway has a flat-topped porch
supported on two Ionic columns. The other four houses of
this group are paired; Nos. 82–84 have rendered fronts and
each house is of two bays; in Nos. 86–88 the façade is unified
by coupling the doorways and adding blind Palladian windows
centrally on the first and second storeys.

The houses of Dorset Street and Orchard Street were built
in the first half of the 19th century on the site of a former
orchard and gardens between The Close and Salisbury Street.
The land is shown on Bastard's town plan and it appears
that the two streets follow the line of two former groves of
trees; the alley which still cuts northwards from the S.E.
corner of Dorset Street to the W. side of Orchard Street
existed formerly and appears on the map as a diagonal footpath
between the two groves. The short E.-W. street in the same
quarter corresponds with the N. boundary of the orchard, and
northwards from there the streets change direction and converge on Salisbury Street, crossing the area where Bastard
found gardens. The 19th-century development is a mixed one
of predominantly two-storied one-bay brick-built terrace
houses, mainly with slated roofs and rendered fronts. A few
groups of three-storied terraces occur, such as Nos. 28–34
Orchard Street, with a symmetrical rendered elevation, and Nos.
14–20 Dorset Street. Nos. 12 and 22 Dorset Street, and No. 24
Orchard Street are two-storied houses of three bays with
central entrances. Damory Street, called Damary Lane on
Bastard's map, appears to have had few buildings until the
middle of the 19th century, when groups of houses were erected
on the E. side; they are of two storeys, with brick walls and
slated roofs with wide overhanging eaves. Among them are
four groups of terraced houses with paired doorways under
concave metal canopies, and two groups of semi-detached
houses with similar entrances.

A cottage at 22 Bryanston Street illustrates the continued
use of blue all-header brickwork in modest housing, as late as
c. 1825.